Finback Whale found dead in Atlantic Beach on Wednesday (Courtesy: Raina Russo)
The finback whale that washed up ashore on Atlantic Beach on Wednesday morning may have died after it collided with a ship, a spokesperson for the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation said Thursday.
Marine biologists from the foundation conducted a necropsy that revealed that the 48-foot whale suffered blunt force trauma after it was hit by a large vessel.
The whale also suffered bruising, which indicates that the finback didn’t die immediately after it was struck by the ship, said Rob DiGiovanni of the Riverhead foundation.
He did say, however, that the collision “could have been contributory, but we don’t know that this was an immediate cause.”
DiGiovanni said biologists took other tissues from the whale to find out if there was anything else wrong with whale.
Click here to see more pictures of whale that washed ashore Wednesday
The finback was a male, DiGiovanni said, and weighed around 40 tons before it died.
The whale was disposed of by the Town of Hempstead on Thursday and was incinerated.
It was spotted by beachgoers Wednesday, who were walking on the beach on the western end of Long Beach, the westernmost barrier island on Long Island’s south shore.
It appeared to be the same whale that experts have been tracking since Sunday, when the finback was first seen near Long Branch, NJ.
Raina Russo, an Atlantic Beach resident, went to the beach after hearing helicopters over her house.
“It looks like it was hit because the tail was sliced so it appears to be like an accident,” she told the Press.
The incident comes after a dead pilot whale was found on Fire Island recently and about a half-dozen basking sharks were spotted off of Cupsogue Beach County Park in Westhampton last week.
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