A minke whale touched down briefly, alive, just west of Montauk’s Kirk Park Beach on Monday. It later moved off the beach, died, and has since been drifting about a mile offshore, according to Timothy Treadwell, East Hampton Town’s senior harbormaster. Marine Patrol had been monitoring the animal but lost sight of it by yesterday.
Rob DiGiovanni, chief scientist for the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, said the whale was only briefly onshore before waves sucked it 400 yards out, making an examination impossible.
“Now we’re in a situation where we’re waiting for it to come up in a better location. Our team went out to see if it we could secure it, but no,” Mr. DiGiovanni said. In the brief time the team was able to view the whale, he estimated that it was between 20 and 30 feet long, meaning it was an adult. “It looked like it had been on the beach a couple of times. It was scarred up.”
Like the more frequently spotted humpback whales, minkes are baleen whales that feed on schooling fish like the Atlantic menhaden, also known as bunker, which have been here in quantity, just offshore, since mid-August. Mr. DiGiovanni said minkes surface less frequently than humpbacks, and have only a “small blow” before they dive again. There have been few sightings, though he said they are common just offshore. “Back in the day, it was all minke and fin whales. Humpbacks have only recently been added to that mix.”
In fact, a 62-foot fin whale — which are the second-largest whale species on earth, growing up to 80 feet — washed up just west of here, at Cupsogue Beach County Park, earlier this week. Early last week, Mr. DiGiovanni said that the whale was 12 miles southwest of Montauk before it washed east and was beached. It was “severely decomposed,” and “showed signs of trauma,” though an exact cause of death will not be determined until samples came back from the pathologist.
“Every month of the year we have whale strandings,” Mr. DiGiovanni said. During the summer, whales come closer to shore, but in the autumn, Long Island is close to the migratory route that brings them south. “That’s why this was an area for whaling, back in the day.”
Mr. DiGiovanni hopes that more beachgoers will report whales when they see them, by emailing [email protected]. People who are out fishing and see a whale floating should call the marine society’s stranding hotline: 631-369-9829.
“The good news,” he said, “is, we’re also seeing more of these animals alive. It’s exciting. A lot of recent protection efforts are having a positive impact.”
