Even the wildlife is trying to catch a peek of NYC during the holidays!
First an owl hitched a ride on the Rockefeller Christmas tree, and now a whale was seen swimming in the Hudson River off Pier 84 in Hell’s Kitchen.
A New Yorker posted the video on Twitter Monday, December 7, and others also apparently recorded their sighings with Gotham Whale, a marine mammal research, education & advocacy group in western NY that has been cataloging humpback whales in & around NYC waters.
🗽 🐋@NJwhalegirl @gothamwhale @wildcitynyc @NBCNewYork @brian4NY #CitizenScience #humpbackwhale pic.twitter.com/gfFIMELIle
— Andrés (@AndresJavierNYC) December 7, 2020
Ok, so the creature actually wasn’t trying to catch a glimpse of the city lights, if you didn’t guess. The organization said that there are humpback whales in New York waters all year round, even in the cold of winter, as some whales don’t migrate down to calving and breeding grounds of the Silver Bank, Navidad Banks, and others in the waters surrounding the Dominican Republic and Turks & Caicos.
That’s why, they explain, citizen reporting of whale sighting is so important, as they can compare images of their unique dorsal fins and flukes and potentially ID and track the whales. They said the whale just sighted this week could match the dorsal of a whale sighted earlier this year.
This whale was likely munching on the bunker fish in our waters!
featured image source: Twitter / @andresjavier