January 07, 2023
Another humpback whale washed ashore on a New Jersey beach on Saturday.
According to the City of Atlantic City Twitter, the 30-foot juvenile whale was discovered on Georgia Ave. beach in Atlantic City around 8 a.m.
According to Sheila Dean, Marine Mammal Stranding Center director, the whale will have a necropsy on Sunday to determine the cause of death by dissecting the dead mammal and running tests. The dead mammal was moved to dunes on the beach, where it will stay until the procedure is done on Sunday.
This is the third dead whale to wash ashore on a New Jersey beach since December. According to the Inquirer, one man, Jim D'Allesandro, believes the increase in dead whales has something to do with the plans to build a wind farm off the coast. Wind farms are power stations designed to produce electricity.
Just before Christmas, a juvenile whale was spotted ashore at Chelsea Avenue beach.
"You never know where they're (whales) going to come in," Dean said. "It just depends on what's swirling around in the ocean."
And two weeks before that, another dead 30-foot whale was seen on Strathmere beach by a man who was surfing with friends when they came up on the large mammal.
"We looked down the beach, and there's just this huge lump," Tom D'Intino said. "Some guy came up and said There's a whale down there,' and you see this huge lump, and the drift was bad, so you just saw it pulling away. But we went down and checked it out, and yeah, it was huge. It was definitely dead, it wasn't floundering or flopping or anything like that."
Once seen as an endangered population in New Jersey water, humpback whales' presence has increased off the coast over the past decade.
This morning, at approx. 8 a.m., a 30-foot humpback whale was discovered on the Georgia Avenue beach in Atlantic City. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center has taken the initial samples.
— City of Atlantic City (@AtlanticCityGov) January 7, 2023
With health and safety in mind, we urge everyone to avoid this area. pic.twitter.com/6bE9HYAsDv
Beached Whale on Atlantic City Boardwalk @CitizenApp
Atlantic City Boardwalk 9:52:27 AM EST
