She was one of the Big Apple’s hottest young rising stars — and she was tragically lost too soon.
The humpback that washed up dead in Long Beach this week has been identified as NYC0393, a playful and spirited cetacean who had become familiar to whale watchers last summer for her acrobatic displays, including some spectacular tail flips in the shadow of the city skyline.
“There were a few trips where it would just be tail throwing — when it throws its entire back body out of the water,” said Chris St. Lawrence of the south Brooklyn research center, Gotham Whale.
“We did have this whale super active on numerous occasions . . . It was doing that right in front of the Verrazano Bridge.”
Whale experts said that the 28-foot-long leviathan was likely killed in a horrific boat strike, as she was missing many of her internal organs and was covered with body trauma “consistent” with such a collision, according to the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society.
The body of the whale — which had been designated NYC0393 by researchers — was already in a state of decomposition when it was discovered at Roosevelt Beach Monday. Experts are still working to determine just how long it was dead.
In the wake of the tragic discovery of the young, popular humpback, those who knew her recalled the spectacular shows she put on for whale watchers last year.
“It would do those tail-throwing behaviors. We also had a day where it was breaching, and we also saw it lunge feeding — when it comes up right underneath that bait fish to swallow that whole,” St. Lawrence said.
“We do know this whale was not only feeding, but had the energy and ability to keep doing these acrobatic behaviors, so it definitely seemed like a healthy animal.”
NYC0393 was spotted at least 12 times near the Big Apple between June and August, and she stood out from a rapidly growing humpback population in the area’s waters — as Gotham Whale celebrated as a blockbuster year for whale watching.
NYC0393 was one of the astounding 100 new whales that the research center cataloged in 2024 — a jaw-dropping sum compared to the measly five that were documented when Gotham Whale started its mission in 2011.
Other than being known for her Broadway-caliber behavior, the juvenile whale was also the easiest to spot because of its distinctive scarring along its dorsal fin — a harbinger of the mammal’s tragic death.
“Not only were there scars on the dorsal fin, but around the dorsal fin it also had entanglement scars, so there was evidence that it had at one point been wrapped up in lines, whether that’s fishing gear or something else,” said St. Lawrence, 21, adding that other whales in the 400-animal strong catalog have suffered similar injuries, including propeller scars.
Although celebrated as a sign of a healthy ecosystem, the surging whale population in and around New York City could mean higher cetacean death rates.
Whales tend to follow their food, and experts at Gotham Whale have discovered that baitfish favor the Ambrose Channel — a man-made shipping channel for large vessels traveling to the New York Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean.
“New York City is such a busy shipping hub and we’ve seen increases in shipping traffic. Knowing that more whales are coming to this dangerous area, it’s only a matter of time when things like this happen,” said St. Lawrence.
“We don’t know what class of vessel is hitting these whales. It could be anything from these massive cruise ships to smaller fishing vessels. But, we need to consider all the risks and the evidence that we have. We know that whales and boats are interacting in this area with some frequency. And we do expect some of those encounters to go even further than you start and end up killing these whales.”
