What to Know
- A humpback whale washed up along the Jersey Shore in Manasquan Monday afternoon; it was not immediately clear how it had died
- The discovery comes a few weeks after another whale was discovered at Lido Beach West Town Park on Long Island, which was hauled up to the beach with a crane.
- NOAA, which is responsible for the nation’s oceans and fisheries, says 19 humpback whales were stranded in 2022 along the U.S. Atlantic coast. During the first month of 2023, there were already seven whales beached from Maine to Florida
Officials are planning to conduct a necropsy on a dead whale that washed ashore in New Jersey on Monday.
According to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, a humpback whale washed up along the Jersey Shore in Manasquan Monday afternoon. Once the necropsy is performed, researchers might be able to determine how old the whale was and how it died.
The procedure could be done Tuesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also been notified.
In January, a humpback whale washed ashore on a New York beach after it was likely killed by a vessel, NOAA officials said.
In that case, it was a male named Luna that was more than 40 years old and had been tracked by marine biologists for decades, said NOAA.
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The whale was discovered at Lido Beach West Town Park on Long Island and was hauled up to the beach with a crane.
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Officials said that whale’s level of decomposition indicated that it had died several days before washing ashore, contradicting early reports that the animal had beached itself while it was alive.
The whale was about 41 feet long and weighed 29,000 pounds, the officials said.
NOAA, which is responsible for the nation’s oceans and fisheries, says 19 humpback whales were stranded in 2022 along the U.S. Atlantic coast. During the first month of this year, there were seven whales beached from Maine to Florida.
