Next time you’re walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, try to look down to see if a 30-ton mammal is swimming beneath you.
Hundreds of humpback whales have started to use the area outside New York Harbor as a feeding ground, nursery and a migratory route over the past decade, thanks in part to healthier waters and reduced fishing, the head of a conservation-minded nonprofit told me. (Recreational boaters recently helped save a whale tangled in fishing gear, for instance, and photographers documented another one within sight of the State of Liberty.)
Gotham Whale spotted five whales in the triangular area between the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge, Jones Beach, Long Island and northern New Jersey when volunteers from the NYC-based volunteer group started tracking marine life in 2011.
In 2020, the team recorded more than 300 whales moving through the same area, an increase that Gotham Whale executive director Paul Sieswerda attributes to healthier populations of prey fish, called menhaden, and a huge uptick in the amount of New Yorkers who submit pictures of the whales, dolphins and seals to researchers.
“The numbers are so dramatically different that there’s just no question that something is going on,” Sieswerda said. “We’ve documented a whale feeding beneath the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge, we’re seeing whales off Battery Park near the Statue of Liberty and we’ve seen them eating up by the George Washington Bridge.”
Disturbing footage of dead fish in places like Flushing Creek, in Queens, helped convince state lawmakers to pass legislation to plug sewage overflows and stop the use of damaging nets in commercial fishing in New York. Those efforts, combined with the results of the Clean Water Act of 1972, which regulated the discharge of harmful materials into the water, have boosted the amount of plankton in the water, attracting more fish and more predators to feed on those fish.
“The Hudson River is pushing out more nutrients instead of pollution,” Sieswerda told me. “It’s just cause and effect.”
Recent footage of dolphins swimming in the East River is the latest evidence of healthier seas. “That was the most surprising thing I’ve seen,” Sieswerda added.
Marine education and advocacy is fueled by a concept that Gotham Whale calls citizen science, or the idea that anyone can participate in larger research efforts. Last year, roughly 100 people sent pictures and other data about the natural phenomena they witnessed to Gotham Whale.
A picture of a humpback whale swimming off Battery Park, for instance, goes into a larger database that helps volunteers pinpoint the location of different species in the New York area. From that database, biologists can examine wildlife trends, conduct studies and recommend the kinds of policy changes that might help animals continue to coexist with New Yorkers.
“Without documenting that activity, it becomes hearsay,” Sieswerda said. “But this citizen science helps paint a fuller picture.”
You can learn more about how whale watching tours boost research via Gotham Whale's social media sites, and get a sense of how New York's Department of Environmental Conservation is tracking all kinds of species here.
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one more thing
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