The corpse of a whale lies in the surf at Monmouth Beach earlier today. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Trufolo)
A dead humpback whale washed up in Monmouth Beach Monday.
Jay Pagel, a senior field technician with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, tells redbankgreen the presence of the whale was reported to his organization shortly after 9a.
Onlookers gathered on the sea wall north of Monmouth Beach Club to get a look at the whale. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Trufolo)
As of 6pm, it was still on a narrow strand north of the Monmouth Beach Club, Pagel said. Stranding center officials expect that the tide will carry it farther north, to a point where they can get access to it with heavy equipment to dismember it for a necropsy.
The recurring presence of whales in our ocean waters, meantime, is not a sign of whale distress, he says.
“Mainly it’s just whales coming in to feed,” Pagel says. “It happens every summer.”
Anthony Trufolo of Little Silver was kind enough to supply our photos.
