Officials said that two dead humpbacks were seen floating in the water off New York in this week. This is part of an alarming increase in whale deaths across the region.
The two whales first seen on Wednesday were buried Friday. One was found off the eastern coast of Long Island, and the other in Raritan Bay which is between New Jersey and New York City Borough Staten Island.
Andrea Gomez, a fisheries spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that a Long Island whale had been spotted about eight kilometers (five miles) from Wainscott in New York.
50 MAYORS OF BLUE STATE CALL FOR A MORATORIUM OFFSHORE TO MANAGE WIND IN THE MIDST OF DOLPHIN AND WHALE DEATHS
Southampton Town Police reported that the whale floated into Shinnecock Bay on Thursday. The animal was dragged onto the shore by the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society and NOAA staff after the police secured it to the beachfront. Eric Sickles, a police officer from the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, said that they worked together to secure the animal on the beachfront and then drag it onto shore where a necropsy could be performed.
Two whale carcasses found off the coast of New York are being necropsied (not shown in picture). (U.S. Coast Guard station Sandy Hook. )
Gomez added that the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society also received a report on Wednesday of a dead whale in Raritan Bay.
She said that the whale was towed on shore by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center on Thursday, so that it could be examined on Friday.
The two humpback whale deaths are part a wave of whale deaths in the area.
This year alone, more than 30 whales have washed up dead along the East Coast. Many of these were in New Jersey or New York.
NOAA officials conducted a briefing on offshore wind farms in January, to respond to claims made by wind farm opponents that whale deaths could be related to this industry.
Scientists have not found any evidence linking wind farms to the deaths of whales.
