The calf, sighted off Bermuda over the weekend by a group of local divers on a whale watching expedition, will most likely be able to free itself in time, Dr. Peter Beamish of Canada said.

The Canadian marine biologist and author of "Dancing with Whales'', said: "By my estimate, it is not such a sad thing for the little whale,'' he said.

"I do not think he will end up dying -- his chances of survival are very reasonable.

"It's quite common for humpback whales to get a piece of fish net wedged up in their mouths between what are called baleen plates. What the whale normally does in such a case, is go down to the bottom into quiet waters for a long period until it eases out the rope and spits it out.'' Dr. Beamish said he believed the entanglement was a recent occurrence due to fact the rope had not appeared to be causing any broken skin on the whale.

He thought it had happened while the whale was in Caribbean waters this past winter and not off the Newfoundland coast. Humpback whales annually migrate to the northwest Atlantic after spending winter in the warm waters of the Caribbean. They stop briefly to feed in Bermuda.

Dr. Beamish, who has studied whales for 25 years, said he had seen about 200 whales trapped in fishing line or nets. He had helped release more than 100 whales who could not escape from fishing nets near the Newfoundland shoreline, he said.

In 1969, Dr. Beamish founded Newfoundland-based CETA-Research, which today has an active whale rescue programme. The problem of whales getting caught in fishing nets came as a result of overfishing of eastern Canadian waters in the 1960s and 1970s, he said. Humpbacks came farther inshore for feeding just as cod fishermen changed to stronger and bigger nets which were more capable of trapping whales.

Dr. Beamish invented the warning device which is now attached to fishing nets off Newfoundland to keep whales out of danger.

He plans to give a lecture tomorrow night at the Anglican Cathedral at 7.30 p.m. on his pioneering whale rescue operation based in Newfoundland. The talk, which includes a slide show, costs $10 with proceeds going towards whale research.

The ensnared baby whale was spotted on Easter Sunday by a group of divers who were on a whale watching trip off the South Shore with Fantasea Diving.

As the lone 25-30-foot calf rose out of the water, it made a noise which one member of the group described as a cry for help.

The whale had a long piece of thick, dark-red coloured rope wrapped around its snout, back and flukes.

Before the divers could get in the water to try and free the calf, it disappeared into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.