Humpback Whales In New York City’s Harbor | Nightly News Films

the first whale that i saw in the harbor was a humpback whale it was just a glimpse but was so exciting to see these with new york city in the background and so that just said this is it they're coming to me this is wonderful [Music] gotham whale is a research organization that partners with a whale watch boat and we keep track of where we see whales what their behaviors are latitude and longitude the precise locations of where we see them and we keep a database of this information so that we build a picture of what whales are doing it was unusual to see whales in this area prior to 2011 there weren't many whales an occasional whale kind of passed through but it was not a feeding ground i had heard that the new york harbor was so poisonous that if a police officer fell into the hudson river was a mandatory two-day stay in the hospital for observation that's how seriously sick our waters were [Music] somewhere around 2010 or 11 the whale populations really started growing in this area and i think once the whales realized this was a good place to stay they told their friends about it we noticed the uptick in the number of whales almost immediately the first season that we went out was very meager we saw only five sightings that that season every year since it more than doubled the hudson river is a major influence to the area where we see these whales it's bringing now nutrients down out into the ocean to feed the menhaden rather than bringing the pollution down that keeps all the fish away [Music] people only protect what they care about and they only care about what they know about so it's important to educate the people about what's around here and the best way to do is just show it to them for the humpback whale scientists primarily use the pattern on the underside of their tail or fluke for identification we try to photograph that image for each whale we encounter so we're looking at that pattern also the trailing edge which is the outline of the fluke is also very important on every cruise we keep a data sheet they keep track of the latitude and longitude at what point they see the whale the behaviors of the whale and also what we're able to do is identify the whales as individuals the numbers have increased a hundred fold so that's just amazing to me the fact that these whales are coming here to feed is also quite remarkable usually the young calves learn where the feeding grounds are by undertaking that very long migratory journey with their mothers from the mating and calving ground where they were born which in our area is the caribbean the whales have decided there's no point swimming any further north we've got food here why would you commute any further than you need to so the whales are staying around longer and they know that this is a good area so we're seeing repeat sightings of same whales year after year because they've learned this is a great place to come to feed i think the progress for conservation is very encouraging we like to think we are telling a good news story i think downstream long term in the future we're going to realize how important it is to protect the environment and we're going to see a resurgence of the the energy that we saw in the 1960s to really get rally around conservation it will not only protect our whales but also it has an effect on us we have to realize we're part of this environment so if we protect the environment we're doing good things for ourselves as well [Music] thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app

Channel: NBC News

Views: 191,414

Rating: 4.9149818 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: bZv6tpvVqzE

Length: 5min 23sec (323 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mikevago]

We should really take a moment and thank everyone who made this possible — Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the entire crew of their wessel.

[u/yiannistheman]

There's really nothing more awesome than being in a small boat and seeing a whale or a school of dolphins off in the distance, particularly when you're inshore and still within viewing range of the city.

I've been fishing NYC's shores since the late 80's. Dolphins and seals are a frequent occurrence. Since 2005, with the bunker population seemingly growing considerably, they started showing up more and more, and then a few years later the whales started picking up too. I'm lucky to have not gotten too close, but on a fishing visit to Cholera Banks we saw a fin whale working a school of bunker and it was like an episode of Blue Planet.

[u/LeConformiste]

Terrific! Thank you for posting this.

[u/da_reddit_reader]

I was working at 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City and you could see them from the higher floors in the bay/ most southern part of Hudson River between New York and New Jersey - this was back in 2016-2017. You can see the blow coming up.

[u/TangoRad]

I saw them at Rockaway early last week, doing their thing. All types- cops, old ladies doing their power walks, people from the nursing homes, derelicts, etc stopped and collectively said "wow'. It was a great moment.

[u/dspeyer]

Is their database of sightings available anywhere? Or do they just collect the data to sit on it?

[u/777FADEC]

In honor of John McAfee, I know what I must do.

"Enough of the "Whale Fucking is non-consensual" bullshit. A Humpback Whale weighs 70,000 pounds, is fifty feet long, can dive more than a quarter mile and can crush ships with a single swipe of its tail. If a human manages to fuck one, you damn well better believe it's consensual"

-John McAfee

[u/LavishnessLittle517]

Incredible

[u/NoodleKing420]

I want to touch one.