Dead Whale Washed Ashore On LBI: Cause Revealed
The Jersey shore let out a collective cry last week when the relative quiet winter in the Atlantic Ocean was shaken awake by some bad news. A dead whale had washed ashore. Another dead whale washed up on a Jersey shore beach. It had been months since this had happened. The location of this whale was the 51st Avenue beach on Long Beach Island.
Sadly, dead whales had become all too familiar in the waters off the Jersey Shore and Long Island. As much as we love our roadside attractions, we love our sea life more.
The whale that washed up on the beach on Long Beach Island last week was a young and small Humpback whale. Sure, a 25-foot whale looks big, but an adult Humpback whale grows to about 50 feet in length. They can grow to 80,000 pounds. This one was a relative baby. When born, a Humpback whale weighs about 2000 pounds and measures about 13 feet long.
Dead Whale Washed Ashore: Cause Of Death
When news of the dead whale washed up on Long Beach Island the Marine Mammal Stranding Center was called into action. They assist with many kinds of sea life when they’re found in distress on the Jersey shore. Sadly, they’ve been called to action many times for this particular issue in the past year or so. Sometimes the cause of death of a deceased whale isn’t obvious and the whale needs to undergo further research to find the cause. In this case however, the answer was decoded almost immediately. According to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center this dead whale washed ashore died from blunt force trauma:
Whale Deaths Leave More Questions
Jersey shore locals have a lot of questions but very few answers when it comes to the whale deaths in the waters off our coast. Rumors and innuendo fill the vacancy when clear answers don’t exist. Social media doesn’t help, of course.
Some well meaning concerned residents point their finger at the recent sonar mapping of the sea floor that is being done to prepare waters many miles off shore for wind energy “farms’ approved by the the Christie administration and supported by the Murphy administration. Others respond that studies linking the sonar mapping to whale deaths are inconclusive or just plain don’t exist. Still others respond that many these deaths are clearly caused by boat strikes, so why are not large ships forced to slow down in the shipping lane that leads to the New York / New Jersey harbor?
Until these questions are answered we will continue to see these amazing animals suffer.
