Over the weekend, those who hit the coast at Rockaway Beach were graced with an amazing whale sighting.
If you were at Rockaway Beach on Sunday morning around 9 a.m. you likely witnessed a rare view of a whale flapping around, and not too far from the shore either. The humpback whale (as it is expected to be considering they are the most sighted around NYC) can be seen in this video uploaded to twitter by Justin Hendrix:
https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/1135174993237729280
According to NYC’s whale research and advocacy organization, Gotham Whale, sightings have spiked around NYC’s waters with 272 reported in 2018—a massive increase from only 5 whales spotted in 2011. This wild increase in numbers is said to be due to cleaner waters. According to reports, the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act have played an important role bringing these giant beauties back into our waters by cleaning the pollution that was filtering out from the Hudson River.
Gotham Whale has partnered up with American Princess Cruises to create summer whale watching day trips that depart from Queens.
featured image source: Artie Raslich/Gotham Whale