Whale, that’s something you don’t see every day.
A humpback made a shocking splash beneath the Brooklyn Bridge Monday — marking the species’ first visit to the East River in two years.
“It’s much, much more common to see them in the ocean along the coastline. We have only had rare cases of them moving into the river, but it does happen,” Danielle Brown, Gotham Whale’s director of research, told The Post.
A lone snapshot of the cetacean showed it slapping its impressive fluke against the choppy waters around 4 p.m. as the iconic bridge looms in the distance.
Other reports indicate the humpback also swam through the Buttermilk Channel, the narrow passage between Governor’s Island and Red Hook roughly 40 miles away from the whale’s typically feeding grounds along Rockaway Beach.
Brown theorizes that the whale might have simply just been hunting down a meal — Atlantic Menhaden, a favorite snack for humpbacks, is commonly found in the water passage, as well as white perch, striped bass, flounder, black sea bass and more.
Whales typically avoid the city epicenter, possibly in part because of the high boating traffic, though very rarely brave the waterways to indulge in the surplus of marine cuisine.
“The whales will follow fish wherever they need to go. So sometimes that does mean heading north into the river, and it does seem to happen this time of year,” explained Brown.
Although she described the sighting as “not totally out of the ordinary,” Brown recalled that the last time a humpback made an appearance in the East River was in 2022.
Before that, a humpback was spotted basking in the nearby Hudson River back in 2020.
“It’s been a couple years, but we’ve had records of other interesting species in the Hudson River,” Brown continued.
“For example, there have been a lot of dolphin sightings in the Hudson River over the years, so we do know it’s possible for these species to move in that direction, but of course, it’s always a surprise — especially when it comes to these whales.”
Unfortunately, there were no visible identifying features captured by the lone image of Monday’s visitor, making it impossible for whale experts to confirm the humpback’s age or length — but based on predecessors who have frequented the area in the past, Brown estimates it is a juvenile between 25 and 35 feet long.
As of Monday afternoon, there have been no other reported sightings of the whale — but that doesn’t mean it has ditched the Big Apple for deeper waters.
The last few visiting humpbacks spent several days in the rivers before moving back out to sea, meaning the visitor could still be munching on Menhaden below the Brooklyn Bridge.
Brown implored any future sightings to be reported to Gotham Whale to not only study the animal’s behavior, but to get the word out to fishermen who share the metro waterways.
“There’s a lot of risks to a whale in that area,” Brown said. “So we’re hoping this whale is going to be safe. We’re hoping that people are watching out for it when they’re on their boats in the area. And these people who are seeing the whale in the river are actually really helping us out by letting people know that they’re seeing it.”
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