Luna, humpback whale that washed ashore on Lido Beach, likely died from vessel strike, NOAA says
Luna, the 41-foot-long humpback whale that washed ashore on Lido Beach Monday. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Preliminary necropsy results on a whale that washed ashore Monday at Lido Beach indicate the likely cause of death was a vessel strike, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
In a statement provided to Newsday, NOAA Fisheries said while "a vessel strike is the likely cause of death," officials were still awaiting the results of additional tests on tissue and organ samples collected Tuesday. Those will determine if any additional factors played a role in the death of Luna, an approximately 40-year-old male humpback that researchers at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said they had tracked for decades.
"The animal was found to be in good body condition and presented evidence that it had been actively eating," NOAA Fisheries said in its statement. Based on the necropsy samples — including those from blubber, tissue and organs — "the level of decomposition suggests the whale had been dead for several days before washing ashore," the statement said.
Following the necropsy, Luna, who was 41 feet long and weighed about 29,000 pounds, was buried in a 20- to 30-foot-deep hole on the beach.
A spokeswoman for the Center for Coastal Studies, Jooke Robbins, said the agency, along with Allied Whale, a nonprofit marine mammal lab in Maine, had been tracking Luna "since the 1980s."
Luna was part of the population of humpback whales that spends spring through fall feeding in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy — the southernmost primary feeding ground in the North Atlantic, the center said in a statement Wednesday.
Robbins said the center was "one of the first" to see Luna, having encountered the humpback whale off Massachusetts, but that in recent years "he tended to be a more regular visitor to the Bay of Fundy and the coast of northern Maine."
It was not immediately clear why Luna had migrated recently to the waters off Long Island, Robbins said.
Humpback whales usually migrate at this time of year to their breeding grounds in the waters around the West Indies, Robbins said. She said since the preliminary necropsy report indicated that Luna had been actively eating, he may have been off Long Island "spending a bit of extra time bulking up prior to migration."
The death of Luna was originally reported by the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, which is located in Hampton Bays, and is a local partner of NOAA.
NOAA Fisheries has said that of the whales that have been necropsied since 2016, about 40% had shown evidence of "human interaction," from vessel strikes to "entanglement.
Waters along the South Shore are known for a high density of shipping traffic into and out of New York Harbor, officials said.
Luna is the 10th large whale to wash ashore in New York and New Jersey since Dec. 1, and the first to wash up on the South Shore of Nassau County since a 33-foot humpback whale washed ashore in East Atlantic Beach in 2017, officials said.
Earlier this week, NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Andrea Gomez said eight humpback whales and two sperm whales had died off New York and New Jersey since December.
Gomez said Wednesday that despite concerns raised by environmentalists, there were no indications that noise and sonic pollution related to the construction of offshore wind turbine farms played a role in Luna's death.
Preliminary necropsy results on a whale that washed ashore Monday at Lido Beach indicate the likely cause of death was a vessel strike, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
In a statement provided to Newsday, NOAA Fisheries said while "a vessel strike is the likely cause of death," officials were still awaiting the results of additional tests on tissue and organ samples collected Tuesday. Those will determine if any additional factors played a role in the death of Luna, an approximately 40-year-old male humpback that researchers at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said they had tracked for decades.
"The animal was found to be in good body condition and presented evidence that it had been actively eating," NOAA Fisheries said in its statement. Based on the necropsy samples — including those from blubber, tissue and organs — "the level of decomposition suggests the whale had been dead for several days before washing ashore," the statement said.
Following the necropsy, Luna, who was 41 feet long and weighed about 29,000 pounds, was buried in a 20- to 30-foot-deep hole on the beach.
A spokeswoman for the Center for Coastal Studies, Jooke Robbins, said the agency, along with Allied Whale, a nonprofit marine mammal lab in Maine, had been tracking Luna "since the 1980s."
Luna was part of the population of humpback whales that spends spring through fall feeding in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy — the southernmost primary feeding ground in the North Atlantic, the center said in a statement Wednesday.
Robbins said the center was "one of the first" to see Luna, having encountered the humpback whale off Massachusetts, but that in recent years "he tended to be a more regular visitor to the Bay of Fundy and the coast of northern Maine."
It was not immediately clear why Luna had migrated recently to the waters off Long Island, Robbins said.
Humpback whales usually migrate at this time of year to their breeding grounds in the waters around the West Indies, Robbins said. She said since the preliminary necropsy report indicated that Luna had been actively eating, he may have been off Long Island "spending a bit of extra time bulking up prior to migration."
The death of Luna was originally reported by the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, which is located in Hampton Bays, and is a local partner of NOAA.
NOAA Fisheries has said that of the whales that have been necropsied since 2016, about 40% had shown evidence of "human interaction," from vessel strikes to "entanglement.
Waters along the South Shore are known for a high density of shipping traffic into and out of New York Harbor, officials said.
Luna is the 10th large whale to wash ashore in New York and New Jersey since Dec. 1, and the first to wash up on the South Shore of Nassau County since a 33-foot humpback whale washed ashore in East Atlantic Beach in 2017, officials said.
Earlier this week, NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Andrea Gomez said eight humpback whales and two sperm whales had died off New York and New Jersey since December.
Gomez said Wednesday that despite concerns raised by environmentalists, there were no indications that noise and sonic pollution related to the construction of offshore wind turbine farms played a role in Luna's death.
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
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