A rescue team worked to free a young, critically endangered North Atlantic right whale that was found entangled in fishing gear in Cape Cod Bay over the weekend.

The Center for Coastal Studies said a Plymouth, Massachusetts resident who was watching whales through a spotting scope on Saturday alerted them that a whale was dragging a buoy.

The center's Marine Animal Entanglement Response team left Provincetown by boat the same day and found the year-old whale with fishing rope wrapped around its tail. Bad weather conditions prevented the team from helping the whale immediately, but they attached a tracking device to the rope.

Overnight, the whale swam out of the bay and was detected east of Truro, where the crew tried to slow it down with a larger buoy and anchor so they could cut away the rope. But during that process, part of the fishing gear broke off, along with the tracking buoy.

"The whale sped off with wraps of rope around its tail," the center said in a statement. "There is a chance that the whale could shed the remaining entanglement. Follow-up sightings of the whale will help with further assessments."

According to the New England Aquarium, the whale is a yearling calf of the right whale Monarch. It was observed unentangled just a week earlier during a record-setting sighting in Cape Cod Bay, feeding with 32 other whales. 

Entanglement and boat strikes are the biggest threat to the species. There are estimated to be just 384 right whales left in the world.