Next up in our Booth in a Box series: The entanglement game. This game is designed to not only make the booth fun and approachable, but also to raise awareness about entanglement in fishing gear. You can learn more about entanglement in a previous blog.
Entanglement in fishing gear is a leading cause of death in the North Atlantic right whale. Right whales may not notice or see vertical lines that hang from surface buoys to lobster traps or gill nets on the ocean floor. As a result, they often swim right into them, and react by spinning in an attempt to get free, only making the entanglement worse. (Much like you might react if you walk into a spider’s web.) Because right whale have particularly large mouths and skim feed with their mouths wide open for a long time, the entanglements often involve rope around their mouths or stuck between their baleen plates. Sometimes, this makes feeding very difficult. These ropes often wrap around their flippers and flukes as well, and can dig into their skin and cause infection. It is not unheard of for a whale to also be towing one or more traps and buoys with the rope, making it hard to swim.
Booth in a Box aims to not only celebrate these amazing creatures, but also to educate the public of these threats. The entanglement game is meant to be a way to engage people about a very serious and depressing issue. The box comes with two flukes, clamps and rope for the entanglement game. Secure the tails to the table and then the rope can then be wrapped around each fluke to resemble what an entanglement might look like. After this is set up, you can invite visitors to the booth to race and see who can disentangle the whale first.
After they have completed the game, you can discuss the issue of entanglement. (There are materials included with pictures and information, so don’t worry if you don’t know much about the issue.) You can also bring up how whales are disentangled. The Center for Coastal Studies out of Provincetown, MA has been disentangling whales for over 30 years and have trained teams around the world in the techniques that they have developed. It is also important to stress the fact that entanglement isn’t just discomfort or inconvenience for a right whale, it is very likely a death sentence. Likewise, disentanglement is not the solution. It is simply a bandaid. We need to PREVENT these animals from becoming entangled in the first place. There is legislature in review now to help with this issue, but it may be up to the public to help it get passed. That is why every person that visits the booth is important. Let them know that they can contact their representatives and tell them right whales are important and they need to ACT NOW to save them.
There are two ways you can help us with this:
- You can be a Booth Basecamp (anywhere in the country). This means a Booth in a Box lives at your site and it is available to other people locally who can “check it out” from you and use it. (We’ve modeled this off teacher kits from museums). This might be perfect for a nature center or other organization that is open to the public. We have some that are ready to ship to you for use!
- Be a Booth Host: Check out the website for locations of the Booths in a Box. Fill out the form and we will get you set up.
Keep following our blog for more about Booth in a Box!
