Necropsy planned on whale that washed up on Fire Island, officials say

A young Minke whale washed ashore on Fire Island on Saturday morning, and will undergo a necropsy to try to determine why it died, officials said.

First spotted around 8 a.m., it was examined by park rangers and Department of Conservation officers before the tide took it back out, said Robert Rittenhouse, chief of public safety, Village of Saltaire.

"I've seen beached whales before and every time I see one it's a sad thing," said Catherine Schutte, a Fire Island resident who photographed the Minke.

The Minke, the smallest member of the baleen species in the North Atlantic, then washed ashore again at around 11:15 a.m., and was removed half an hour or so later, he said.

Its length — approximately 10 to 15 feet — suggests it is a juvenile, said Rob DiGiovanni, chief scientist, Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, whose team is performing the necropsy.

Adult minkes can grow to about 30 feet and weigh 20,000 pounds, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Their dorsal fin is about two-thirds of the way down their typically black, or grayish or brown back, NOAA says, and they have a "pale chevron on the back of the head and above the flippers."

"Minke whales feed by side-lunging into schools of prey and gulping large amounts of water," the agency says on its website.

Hundreds of plates in their mouths filter out their food, anything from small fish to crustaceans to plankton, it says.

While Minkes are not listed as threatened or endangered in the North Atlantic, they are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.