I got a lot of responses about the photo I posted yesterday of the dead humpback whale that washed up on Jones Beach yesterday. There were a lot of replies, reblogs, and a few people even emailed me. So I just want to shed some light on the situation and clear a few things up.
Firstly, the death and washing up of the whale has absolutely nothing to do with the oil spill in the gulf.
Second, this happens every single year. Just a few months ago, a humpback whale washed up on a beach out in East Hampton. Just last week, a dolphin washed up at Gilgo beach and last summer a shark washed up not to far from Gilgo too. Because I surf, I spend more time on or at the beach year round then most people do and every single year I will see some sort of sea life washed up onshore, whether it is a whale, shark, dolphin, seal, or any other kind of fish that frequent the Atlantic Ocean.
This is not an uncommon occurrence and it is nothing out of the ordinary, especially for whales at this time of the year. That is because whales, and especially humpback whales migrate huge distances between the Caribbean and the Northern Atlantic. After giving birth during the winter or early spring, mothers bring their calves to the feeding grounds in parts of the Gulf of Maine.
Everyone needs to consider that Long Island is a very large piece of land. The south shore has right around 120 miles of Atlantic Ocean facing beaches and when you factor that in to where these whales and other sea life take their routes it doesn’t seem so crazy that every year we see them washed up on our beaches.
Sometime animals get sick and they get weak and they die. It just so happens that Long Island sticks out into the Atlantic and the ocean currents bring the deceased onto the shore.
