Probe seeks reason for dead whale at Jones Beach

Scientists are continuing their investigation into what caused a 30-foot-long humpback whale to wash ashore at Jones Beach Thursday.

Police say beach visitors called officials at 9 a.m. with word of the beached whale, who had died. Hours later, officials from the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation said they planned to do a necropsy on the juvenile whale between Thursday and Friday.

"We're putting together the pieces of the puzzle," said Robert DiGiovanni, a senior biologist and director at the Riverhead Foundation. "It's hard to say what happened. We will investigate. It's too early to determine a cause of death."

DiGiovanni said the whale seems to have been dead for less than a week and most likely died at sea. He said the whale is a juvenile 30-foot humpback whale that may weigh 20 to 25 tons. The whale had begun to decompose as some of its black skin had peeled off exposing a white layer of its body.

Thursday, dozens of onlookers came to the stretch of Jones Beach east of the Central Mall hoping to see the whale. They were upset to learn the whale was already dead.

"I was hoping it was still alive," Billy Ryan, 53, of Levittown said, adding: "This is sad."

"I've never seen anything like this," Gina Henig, 42, of Wantagh, said. "It's amazing. I'm in total shock. It's such a beautiful creature."

George Gorman Jr., regional director of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said that normally the whale would be buried in the dunes at the beach. DiGiovanni was unsure of where yesterday's whale would be buried because the area where it washed ashore is a protected area of the beach due to nearby piping plovers, an endangered bird species, he said. The area is about 1 1/2-2 miles east of the Jones Beach Tower and the Central Mall.

DiGiovanni said the foundation is looking into whether the whale's demise is linked to the death of a dolphin last week that washed ashore at West Gilgo Beach.

According to an official at the Riverhead Foundation, 17 whales, dolphins, or porpoises have washed ashore this year.

In April, an ill humpback whale washed ashore in East Hampton. Several attempts to euthanize that whale failed before authorities were able to finally put it down."In 30 years I've been working for Parks," Gorman said, "it's happened every now and then that we get a whale wash up on one of our beaches. It's not an unusual occurrence."

Such an occurrence draws the curious.

"It's a testament to how amazing where we live is," said Alicia Mazza, 41, of West Gilgo Beach, who said she came down to the site as soon as she heard the news.

"How many places," she said, "can you say you saw a whale?" With John Valenti