Whale guided off South Amboy coastline may be dead, New Jersey

Monday, July 30, 2012

By Tom Haydon/The Star-Ledger

SOUTH AMBOY — Rescuers that led a one-ton whale back to the Raritan Bay off South Amboy this weekend later lost contact with the apparently disoriented animal, and officials suspect it may have died.

“We assuming the worst at this point,” said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the New Jersey Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

News 12 New Jersey’s Facebook PageThe 20-foot long whale was first spotted near South Amboy on Sunday, but officials say it may have since died.

Staff members of volunteers for the center tracked the 20-foot minke whale until shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday, but lost tract of it in the bay.

“I think it may have died and sank,” Schoelkopf said.

After the whale nearly washed ashore in South Amboy early Sunday, rescuers spent four hours guiding and nudging it out of the shallows waters and into the bay. Schoelkopf said they were never an opportunity to harness the animal for examination.

Workers followed the whale until losing track of it.

“It was wandering back and forth and zig-zagging like it was disoriented,” Schoelkopf said.

If the whale survived, it probably would have surfaced in the bay.

“There are plenty of people on the bay who would see it,” the director said.

nj.com

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