Seventy-six is the number NOAA Fisheries assigned to 2025 in its annual national tally of large whale entanglements: 76 confirmed cases of whales caught in fishing gear or marine debris in United States waters during the calendar year. The agency’s report sets that against 95 confirmed cases in 2024 and an 18-year average of 72.7, which makes 2025 a drop from the previous year and a small step above the long-run norm.
The count has a narrow meaning, and the narrowness is what makes it usable. It covers confirmed cases of a defined group of large whales in U.S. waters for one year, and it is a floor, not a census of every animal that dragged a line.
NOAA Fisheries’ 2025 national report
The figures come from NOAA Fisheries’ announcement of the National Report on Large Whale Entanglements Confirmed in the United States in 2025. It says there were 76 confirmed large whale entanglement cases nationally in 2025, lower than the 95 in 2024 and slightly higher than the average of 72.7 a year across the previous 18 years. The agency publishes the report under Section 402 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which calls for dissemination of reference data on marine mammal health.
NOAA’s wording on the harm is plain. Entanglements in fishing gear or marine debris, the agency writes, are a continued threat to the welfare and recovery of many whale species, including endangered North Atlantic right whales, and a whale that cannot free itself can carry the gear for days, months or even years.
Confirmed cases and the large whale list
Two phrases in the 76 figure carry definitions. In the 2023 edition of the same series, available as a NOAA Fisheries PDF, a case counts as confirmed when it represents a unique individual whale rather than repeat reports of the same animal, and both live and dead whales are included. That edition covered U.S. waters off the coasts of 11 states and documented humpback, gray, minke and North Atlantic right whales. The 2025 announcement does not restate those rules, so they are cited here as the series’ method as of the earlier edition.
The definitions explain why the figure cannot be read as the total number of whales harmed by gear. Whales are often reported far from where they were snared, because entangled animals travel, and the 2023 edition reported that 48 percent of cases could not be responded to because of remote locations or unsafe conditions. Cases that nobody saw or could verify never enter the count, which is why NOAA’s Alaska page treats the confirmed total there as a minimum.
Humpbacks, right whales and the regional pattern
Past editions show where the weight falls. The 2023 report found humpbacks accounted for more than 69 percent of confirmed cases since 2007, and that 77 percent of live cases that year came from four states, California, Massachusetts, Alaska and New Jersey. E&E News, covering the 2024 report, reported that 92 percent of the 95 cases involved live whales and that humpbacks were the most affected species, with California leading the states.
On the West Coast, NOAA’s response program names the Dungeness crab trap fishery, gillnets and the sablefish, spot prawn and spiny lobster trap fisheries among identified gear sources, while noting that over half of recent cases involve gear of unknown origin, per its West Coast program page. In Alaska, humpback and gray whales are the species named, and the agency says actual entanglement numbers there are certainly much greater because many go unreported.
A second 76 from 2017
The number has appeared before. An earlier NOAA national report page states that 76 large whale entanglements were confirmed nationally in 2017, also slightly above the annual average. In that year the response network intervened in 50 cases and removed gear from 20 whales. Matching totals eight years apart are a coincidence of counting, not a repeat of the same events, and the 2025 report should be read on its own year. The comparison does show how little the national total has moved over a long stretch, since NOAA described both the 2017 count and the 2025 count as slightly above the annual average of their respective periods.
NOAA runs the response through its Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program and the U.S. Large Whale Entanglement Response Network, which track incidents and analyze gear type, injury severity and population effects. The agency stresses that disentanglement takes specialized training and equipment, and that regional hotlines connect witnesses to authorized responders rather than encouraging amateur rescues.
The gap between the report’s 76 and the unreported cases NOAA itself describes is the figure that stays unmeasured. The agency’s own Alaska page puts the true total there well above the confirmed one without giving a number, and the national report offers no equivalent estimate for the rest of the country.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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