As temperatures across the country dropped in what appears to be one of the coldest holidays in recent memory, a winter storm washed an unlikely visitor ashore on an Atlantic City beach.
An onlooker spotted a dead juvenile humpback whale from their high-rise at Chelsea Avenue beach.
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The Marine Mammal Stranding Center was called at 7:40 a.m. after the whale was seen, according to The Press of Atlantic City.
Whales wash ashore for different reasons, from diseases, parasite infestations, injuries, and weather.
"You never know where they're (whales) going to come in," Sheila Dean, Marine Mammal Stranding Center director, said. "It just depends on what's swirling around in the ocean."
The whale was tested to determine if it had any diseases through samples of its tissue, and it was measured at 30 feet before members of the center prepared to bury it in the sand around 12:30 p.m. Friday because its remains are too big to move.
Once seen as an endangered species in the 1970s, humpback whales have become more common on the Jersey Shore.
A dead humpback whale was found at Strathmere beach just two weeks ago. The 30-foot 20-ton whale was reportedly dead when it washed ashore. Tom D'Intino was surfing when he and a friend came across a large mammal lifeless.
"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," he said.
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In October, a father and son on a boat near Belmar, Monmouth County, just off the Shore, came up close and personal with a whale breaching and hitting their boat. Zach Piller was recording video when the whale leaped into the air.
A July article on NJ.com said that humpback whale sightings have increased over the last decade since 2012; at the time of the research, there had been 257 whale sightings.