Federal agencies, New York and environmental groups are looking into possible reasons for a recent uptick in whale deaths, most of which were discovered on Long Island and New Jersey beaches.
Experts say the number of whales washing ashore on east coast beaches have skyrocketed in recent months. Thirty whales, including humpback and minke, have been discovered since December, mostly in or around the New York Bight.
Robert DiGiovanni is chief scientist at the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society in Hampton Bays. He said an abundance of food has allowed whale populations to make a comeback in the region.
“I think of it this way...If I’m at a buffet and there’s food, I’m sticking around. If there’s no food, I’m not going to hang out. I’ll move to the next course,” DiGiovanni said.
A 2019 law put restrictions on the harvest of menhaden in New York waters. Better known as bunker fish, it is a favorite food of many marine animals.
DiGiovanni's team has surveyed 83 stranded whales since 2017, performing necropsies on 56 of them. They found that most of the whales had died from vessel strikes or entanglements in fishing gear, debunking a popular theory that blames whale deaths on offshore wind development surveys.
