There’s a young whale near Hawaii that needs some help.

An early morning whalewatch on Pacific Whale Foundation’s vessel Ocean Explorer on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009, led to the discovery of a humpback whale calf entangled in polypropylene line.

The juvenile calf, estimated to be about a year old, was sighted with its mother and a male escort whale about three miles off Puamana, which is located just south of Lahaina. When Captain Carlos of Ocean Explorer realized that the calf was entangled, with rope wrapped around its pectoral fins and back he called Ed Lyman, a whale rescue expert with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

The whale has what looks like a couple of hundred yards of rope wrapped around it. So far, they’ve managed to get a transmitter on the whale so they can keep track of it, but rough seas are preventing them from freeing the whale. let’s hope things calm down enough to get this juvenile whale freed before he gets hurt.