Mike Morrissey leads the South Island large whale disentanglement team.

The Department of Conservation's disentanglement team and rangers, Coastguard and police all helped in the rescue.

Mike Morrissey, who leads the South Island large whale disentanglement team, said a whale could travel about 100km per day.

The whale was then seen off Kaikōura several days later and the whale disentanglement team successfully cut the rope from the whale.