Whale watchers in New York and New Jersey have documented their 500th individual humpback whale in local waters, a milestone they said highlights the creatures’ growing role in the local ecosystem.
A confluence of factors has made the region more attractive to humpback whales, according to Chris St. Lawrence, a spokesperson for Gotham Whale, a Staten Island-based nonprofit that has spearheaded an effort to catalog humpback whales in the New York City region since 2012.
The waters around New York and New Jersey have gotten cleaner in recent decades, allowing more fish to thrive in the area. That’s big for whales, whose traditional feeding grounds in New England and Canada have been disrupted as climate change warms ocean temperatures and changes the distribution of prey species.
“ These whales are looking for new food sources, and right here in New York, thanks to fishery management, thanks to cleaner water, now we have a new food resource for them to exploit,” St. Lawrence said.
But the whales coming to New York and New Jersey face serious risk of being hit by ships and boats in one of the nation’s busiest waterways. The Port of New York and New Jersey was the second-busiest port for cargo imports in the country in June, according to the Port Authority. Whales spotted in the area are frequently found with wounds or scars from propeller strikes.