GRAND MANAN, New Brunswick - A humpback whale is swimming free after being disentangled from fishing gear during a rescue in the Bay of Fundy.

Steven Wilson of the New Brunswick fisheries department says a fisherman called Tuesday to say he had seen the whale trapped in lobster fishing gear off Grand Manan island in waters east of Maine.

Wilson says nothing could be done until Wednesday, when a team of fisheries officers and whale disentanglement experts headed to the site. They were concerned the whale might have died overnight because the gear in which it was wrapped was anchored to the bottom.

But Wilson says there was enough slack in the ropes to allow the whale to breathe at the surface. It took about an hour for rescuers to cut the ropes and free the whale.