Humpback Whales Keep Coming To Jersey Shore - And Staying

JERSEY SHORE, NJ — Humpback whale sightings have increased over the past decade off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. The whales are staying for longer and returning year-after-year, according to a recent study.

The study, co-authored by Rutgers University, Gotham Whale (a non-profit research organization based out of Staten Island), the Center for Coastal Studies and 21 other organizations in the western North Atlantic was published in the "Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom."

The results of the study show that more than half of the whales that visit the New York Bight Apex (the area between Long Island and the New Jersey coast) stay there longer and are likely to return from one year to the next. These whales are specifically in the area stretching east to Fire Island and south to Manasquan Inlet.

“This research is important for the management of these protected species,” said Danielle Brown, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Rutgers-New Brunswick and lead researcher for nonprofit Gotham Whale. “The more time these whales spend in the New York Bight Apex may mean increased exposure to human activities including busy shipping traffic leading into the Port of New York and New Jersey.”

Whale sighting information from 2012-2018 was used to analyze characteristics of these humpbacks. This is the first study to specifically study NYBA whale characteristics. Sightings were analyzed for occurrence, occupancy, annual return and number of years seen.

The study said that 58.4 percent of whales in the NYBA were spotted more than once in the same year or different years. Most of these whales were juveniles - 5-years-old or younger, according to the research. They stayed for an average length of 37.6 days, the study said. Many of these whales belong to the Gulf of Maine feeding population, with some from Eastern Canada and many others had an unknown feeding population.

Some of the individual whales were also seen in other nearby areas like eastern Long Island, Cape May and Virginia. Most of these were in the same year - 73.3 percent of Cape May matches and 55. percent of Long Island matches were, the study said. Most matches were there before heading to the NYBA.

So why do these whales keep coming here? Researchers are not too sure. They said it may be because of a prey species, Atlantic menhaden, that is consistently available in the New York and New Jersey coasts. These herrings are commercially fished and have increased in abundance in the past decade, researchers said.

The study recommends additional monitoring of whales in the NYBA to learn more about the overlap with human activities and changes in the population along the East Coast.

You can read the entire study online for free, courtesy of Cambridge University Press.