Whales of New York

Matthews Wills, who I follow on Twitter (@backyardbeyond) went out on a whale-watching boat from Far Rockaway not long ago and encountered a humpback whale near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. He wrote about it beautifully on his blog, Backyard and Beyond.

A Dead Whale on Your Property? That's Your Problem

A few years ago a deer that had apparently been hit by a car staggered onto our property and died on the driveway, in front of the garage (I have some gruesome photos which I won't bother posting). We called a cop who came up to look and then told us to call the highway department, which was happy to cart the carcass away.

Compared to a homeowner near Point Judith, Rhode Island, we were lucky. The other day a dead whale washed up onto his beach. The Providence Journal summed up the situation succinctly:

The whale was wrapped with some kind of line, perhaps fishing line, and that was cut off and sent for examination to the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Removal of the whale is the responsibility of the property owner...

Bummer, for the whale and for the property.

Whales Near New London

Whales have been spending some time near the eastern end of Long Island Sound in recent days, although what kind of whales seems to be unknown still, and exactly where they are is a bit vague. Today's Newsday says:

A pod of whales - usually found in the deeper waters of the Atlantic - has been swimming in Block Island Sound off of New London, Conn., for the past week.

Then the story says:

Robert DiGiovanni, director of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, said "We don't get a lot of reports of those animals in that area but this year there has been unusual weather patterns with such a mild winter. ... We've have reports of whales in Long Island Sound over the years but they are hard to verify."

So where are they? Block Island Sound is the strip of water between Block Island and mainland Rhode Island. If whales are in Block Island Sound, they're not off New London in any but the most general sense -- they'd have to be in Long Island Sound (or Fishers Island Sound) to be off New London.

Regardless, it's an interesting occurence. The whales seem to be healthy and feeding, and with any luck they won't meet the same fate as the dolphins that swam into a cove of Long Island's north fork a couple of weeks ago.