The sight of a 35-foot humpback whale greeted early-morning strollers on Long Island beach in New York.
The male behemoth had been washed ashore at Lido Beach West Town Park, in the town of Hempstead, but sadly died before crews arrived to rescue the beast.
Found at around 6.30am in the morning, it is the first whale washed up at Hempstead for several years and according to the town supervisor Don Clavin, “this is by far the largest”, before adding: “The crews that have been here for almost two decades have never seen a whale this size.”
Crews decided to move the stricken creature further up the shore, but had a huge job on their hands, as explained by Clavin: “We had to move the whale to higher ground because of the high tide.
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“It’s 35-feet-long. Just pulling it up on the shore, we had to bring in a heavy crane and the wires were snapping because of the tonnage required to really bring it to higher ground.”
It is the tenth whale to wash ashore in the New York/New Jersey area in the last two months – two sperm whales and now eight humpback whales – and according to one person on Twitter, there could be a possible reason for the high number of beached mammals: “All were low frequency, hearing, baleen whales, those that are the most vulnerable to the boomers, sparkers and chirps of offshore wind geotechnical survey work.”
In response, another poster added: “What is going on? These whales that are dying and washing up on the shores of the East Coast. Seems like we should be little concerned about what is causing this.”
New Jersey based Clean Ocean Action is asking the federal government to probe the deaths of the whales that have washed up and want to see if construction work or offshore wind farms are to blame.
There are currently three offshore wind projects being constructed off the coast of New York in federal waters and another four projects in federal waters off the coast of New Jersey, according to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Unsurprisingly, the whale has become something of a visitor attraction, with curious locals turning up to have a peek at the enormous animal, which will have a necropsy performed on it by federal authorities to determine the cause of its death.
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