{"id":12071,"date":"2014-05-26T20:05:32","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T12:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=12071"},"modified":"2014-05-26T20:05:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-26T12:05:32","slug":"more-whales-being-hit-by-ships-along-east-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/26\/more-whales-being-hit-by-ships-along-east-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"More whales being hit by ships along East Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A cruise ship heading for New York this month struck and killed a whale and dragged it into the Hudson River, part of a higher-than-usual rate of strikes along the Eastern Seaboard for this time of year, a federal agency said.<\/p>\n

There were three recent whale strikes recently, including one in which a cruise ship hit a sei (pronounced SAY) whale and did not discover it until it reached port, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.<\/p>\n

In a similar case, a sei whale was found dead and attached to a container ship that was docking near Philadelphia, NOAA said.<\/p>\n

The whales may be following food sources closer to shore, NOAA said. An increased food supply has recently been cited for a large increase in the number of humpback whales off Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

The agency issued a reminder to mariners of measures already in place to protect whales, including speed limits and distances.<\/p>\n

“Nobody wants to hit a whale,” said Marjorie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman. “So we want people to have a greater awareness that they’re out there now.”<\/p>\n

The usual rate of whale strikes by ships is about one every few weeks, she said, compared with the three in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

NOAA said it counted 28 whale strikes in Northeastern waters between 2006 and 2010. Worldwide, a National Marine Fisheries Service survey covering 1975 through 2002 found 292 records of confirmed or possible ship strikes to large whales.<\/p>\n

Rob DiGiovanni, who heads a marine mammal rescue group on Long Island, said he’s seeing “more evidence of ship strikes and that’s definitely a concern.” In the past, his Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation would go a couple of years without seeing a large whale that had been hit by a ship.<\/p>\n

“Now we get a couple a year,” he said.<\/p>\n

The New York cruise ship incident was discovered May 4, the Philadelphia case on May 7, Mooney-Seus said. She did not have details about the third recent strike except that it involved a fin whale; NOAA is investigating.<\/p>\n

A necropsy on the New York whale found it was killed by blunt force, confirming that it was killed by the ship, Mooney-Seus said. The other two whales were not retrieved.<\/p>\n

NOAA said there have been no recent reported strikes of endangered North Atlantic right whales.<\/p>\n

DiGiovanni said his group hopes to study whether the numbers are up because there are more whales, more ships or a change in a food source, as suggested by NOAA.<\/p>\n

In the coastal waters off Boston, large numbers of a fish called the sea lance have turned the mouth of Massachusetts Bay into a “whale feeding ground,” said Laura Howes of Boston Harbor Cruises.<\/p>\n

Twenty to 30 whales are being spotted on every whale watching excursion, 10 times the usual number.<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald reported from White Plains, New York. Associated Press writer Paige Sutherland in Boston contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cruise ship heading for New York this month struck and killed a whale and dragged it into the Hudson …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,3],"tags":[4063,4064,1085,4065,1546,4062,4061,4066],"class_list":["post-12071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-lifestyle","tag-east-coast","tag-eastern-seaboard","tag-nature","tag-ocean-life","tag-safety","tag-ships","tag-whales","tag-wildlife","mauthors-jim-fitzgerald","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}