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A dead finback whale, 62 feet long, washed up at Cupsogue Beach in Westhampton Beach on Saturday. COURTESY ATLANTIC MARINE CONSERVATION SOCIETY
A dead whale that washed up at Cupsogue Beach in Westhampton Beach on Saturday morning, September 14, had injuries consistent with a vessel strike, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society said this week.
Another whale, a 20-foot minke whale that had stranded at a downtown Montauk ocean beach on Monday, September 16, was confirmed to have died and was floating around 1,000 yards south of Montauk on Tuesday.
At Cupsogue Beach, the carcass, a 62-foot female fin whale, was not intact due to “significant predation and decomposition,” Ryan Murphy, Southampton Town’s public safety emergency management administrator, said in a September 14 email. The town, he said, had been monitoring the whale offshore for a few days.
The carcass, about 200 feet east of the jetty, was on Suffolk County property. The County Parks Department and Department of Public Works, and the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, or AMSEAS, mobilized equipment and went to the site in order to take samples. “This could largely be just a disposal and documentation operation,” Ryan said in the September 14 email.
On Tuesday, AMSEAS reported that preliminary necropsy findings for the fin whale revealed that the animal “was in robust body condition and had food in its stomach, which indicates that the animal was likely foraging at the time of death. The whale had several fractured skull bones and extensive bruising in the surrounding tissues, findings consistent with suspect vessel strike.”
Samples were collected from many parts of the whale, including blubber, tissues and organs that will be sent to a pathologist for further analysis, AMSEAS reported, but full results may not be available for several months.
Chief Harry Wallace of the Unkechaug Tribe performed a whale ceremony. The whale was buried on the beach following the necropsy.
On Monday, a distressed minke whale was seen in the shallows off Montauk, briefly stranding in the surf before returning to deeper water. Between strandings, it was observed swimming in circles. It was last confirmed to be floating around 1,000 yards offshore, west of Kirk Park Beach, and was later confirmed to be dead.
AMSEAS is working with East Hampton Town, New York State Parks and Historic Sites, the State Department of Environmental Conservation, and NOAA Fisheries New England/Mid-Atlantic to continue monitoring the whale’s position.
Minke whales have been experiencing an unusual mortality event for several years in the area, according to AMSEAS, which has documented evidence of an infectious disease in many of the minke whales that have stranded in New York since the unusual mortality event was declared in 2017.
AMSEAS asks that dead and stranded whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles be reported to the New York State Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Hotline by calling 631-369-9829.
