Whale Washes Ashore In Seaside Park

SEASIDE PARK, NJ - The body of a humpback whale that had been floating off Seaside Park has washed ashore Thursday morning.

The whale, which was identified as a humpback on Wednesday by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, was at the edge of the water, still in the tidal wash.

It appeared to have been dead for some time, as glimpses showed the interior of its mouth was coming apart, and it was emitting a fishy odor that carried across the dunes to the parking lot.

The whale, which was fairly small, drew a steady stream of onlookers even in the midst of a light rain. Adult humpback whales can grow to 60 feet in length; their calves are typically 13 to 16 feet long, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

It's not clear what time the whale washed ashore, but the beaching was first reported by News 12 New Jersey shortly before 7 a.m.

Officials with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said they were notified at 11:04 a.m. Wednesday about the whale's body, which at that time was about a half-mile off Seaside Park.

"Through drone footage the carcass was identified as a humpback whale," center officials said.

After the initial sighting, officials were not sure whether the whale was the same one seen floating near Ambrose Channel on Monday, but in an update at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, staff with Clean Ocean Action said a determination had been made that the Ambrose Channel whale was not the same one floating off Seaside Park.

That whale appears to have washed up on a jetty at the tip of Breezy Point in New York, on the north side of Ambrose Channel, the Rockaway Times reported. Clean Ocean Action, which has been closely monitoring the whale deaths, said it is believed to be the same whale that was floating in the channel on Monday but has not yet been confirmed by officials.

Staff from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center were in Seaside Park and were working with borough officials to bring the whale up on the beach for the necropsy, the center said in an update on its Facebook page about 10 a.m.

The center performs the necropsies and takes tissue samples that are submitted for additional examination and pathology. In the Wednesday afternoon update, center officials said final pathology results from the whale necropsies submitted so far have not yet been received.

"In fact, we are still waiting for pathology results from animals that stranded last summer," center officials said. "We have been transparent with the information we know from the preliminary necropsy results, however we are at the mercy of the time it takes for final pathology results to be completed."

The Seaside Park stranding is the 10th in New Jersey since Dec. 5, and 18th along the Mid-Atlantic coast in that time. It prompted another round of calls from federal and local politicians for a moratorium on all activities related to offshore wind projects.

Rep. Chris Smith of the 4th District, who represents northern Ocean County shore towns and into lower Monmouth County, and Rep. Jeff Van Drew of the 2nd District, who represents southern Ocean County down to Cape May, have sponsored a House of Representatives bill to force a moratorium. It is not clear when that bill might be presented to the House for a vote, or what would happen in the Senate.

"Anyone who lives at the Jersey Shore knows that these alarming deaths are unprecedented and likely indicative of a larger environmental problem," Smith said in a statement issued Thursday morning. "How much longer will the Biden Administration and Governor Murphy continue to play politics and ignore the extensive calls from me, local residents, fishermen and other stakeholders for a thorough and transparent investigation into this blatant environmental crisis?"

Concerns raised include questions about the potential impact of technology being used for marine site characterization surveys, which look at the sea bed for the potential placement of wind turbines and cables to transfer the electricity generated by turbines.

Bonnie Brady, of the Montauk Commercial Fishermen's Association, said at the Save the Whales rally on Feb. 19 that the testing being done is not seismic testing but sub-bottom profiling, which uses low-frequency sonar to look at 200 to 300 feet below the surface for potential sites for construction. She said questions have been raised as to whether the low-frequency sonar is causing temporary deafness in the whales, affecting their ability to navigate and, in turn, resulting in vessel strikes.

Erica Staaterman, a bioacoustician with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's Center for Marine Acoustics, said the equipment involved produces "a very narrow cone of sound," in some cases as narrow as about 2 degrees in beam width.

"They're very narrow, and that means that the likelihood of an animal encountering and coming right into that sound beam is quite low," she said.

The federal Marine Mammal Commission, an independent agency that is tasked with protecting marine mammals — including whales — said in a Feb. 21 statement that it is monitoring the situation and the Unusual Mortality Event declared by the National Marine Fisheries Service, and ship strikes or fishing gear entanglement accounted for about 40 percent of the deaths where dead whales had been examined.

"Although these strandings have generated media interest and public scrutiny, humpback whale strandings are not new nor are they unique to the U.S. Atlantic coast," the commission said in the Feb. 21 statement. "In fact, ten or more humpback whales have stranded each year during the UME, with a high of 34 in 2017."

"As the Gulf of Maine stock of humpback whales continues to grow, more young animals are choosing to overwinter along the Atlantic coast where they are vulnerable to being struck by ships and becoming entangled in fishing gear," the commission said.

Lauren Gaches, public affairs director for the NOAA Fisheries, said during a conference call with reporters in late January that there have been reports of increased amounts of small bait fish closer to shore this winter.

In addition, there have been more whales seen in the area, including the Ambrose Channel, which is the primary route for large container ships, cruise ships and other boat traffic into and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Hundreds of ships pass through the channel, which runs through the middle of Raritan Bay out to the Atlantic past Sandy Hook and southern Long Island, each year.

"More whales in the water and areas traveled by boats of all sizes increases the risk of vessel strikes," Gaches said.

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