Breaching Whale Stuns Beachgoers At Jersey Shore: Report

SPRING LAKE, NJ - A breaching whale was seen remarkably close to shore Monday morning just off the coast of Spring Lake, according to an Asbury Park Press report.

The whale, seen just a few hundred yards off the beach, jumped through the waters as onlookers congregated by the shoreline, the Press reported.

The whale swam from north to south, blowing water from its blowhole while the crowd whooped, the outlet reported.

This isn’t the first time in recent history that a massive whale has made an appearance close to the shoreline. Last year, a father and son fishing off the Jersey Shore caught sight of a massive humpback whale near Belmar. VIDEO: Humpback Whale Near Jersey Shore Rocks Fishing Boat

New Jersey whale sightings have become more common in recent years, staying for longer and returning year-after-year, according to a recent study co-authored by Rutgers University, Gotham Whale, the Center for Coastal Studies and 21 other organizations.

Whales are specifically in the area stretching east to Fire Island and south to Manasquan Inlet, according to the study, which was published in the "Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom” last year.

Save Coastal Wildlife adds that a disproportionate number of whales seen along the Jersey Shore are juvenile humpback whales, though it’s not clear why.

“It may be the New York-New Jersey Bight is a unique & important feeding area for these teen or adolescent whales,” the organization says on its website. “Changing climate conditions due to Global Warming may also play an undermined role.”

The Animal Protection League of New Jersey and Oceana have also voiced concerns over increasing container port use and vessel speeding along the coast, NorthJersey.com reported.

Warming water temperatures cause the whales to linger a bit longer off New Jersey before they swim south for the winter, Bob Schoelkopf, founder and director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, previously told Patch.

“The whales usually migrate to the Dominican Republic in September or October, but this year the warmer temps are keeping their food source around, so the whales are staying a bit longer, too,” Schoelkopf said.

Lately, not all whales visiting the Jersey Shore have shown up alive. At least 11 whales — mostly humpbacks — have washed ashore on New Jersey beaches or been found dead floating in the water off New Jersey since Dec. 1, 2022, according to various media accounts and the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that New Jersey has seen a higher-than-normal number of humpback whale deaths since 2015, and they classified it "an Unusual Mortality Event (UME)."

But the federal government says they still do not know what's causing the increase in whale deaths.

There have also been 25 dead dolphins that washed ashore in New Jersey so far in 2023. Marine Mammal Stranding Center Director Sheila Dean said in April it was "an unusually high" number of dolphin deaths.

Some elected officials in New Jersey, nearly all of them Republicans, are calling for Gov. Phil Murphy to issue a pause or moratorium on the sonar surveying that is currently being used to build hundreds of wind turbines 10 to 15 miles off the Jersey Shore.

No direct link has been found between the increase in whale and dolphin deaths and the use of sonar mapping.

-Additional reporting by Carly Baldwin and Veronica Flesher.