Dead humpback found on Lewes beach part of alarming trend on East Coast

The juvenile humpback whale found dead along the shoreline in Lewes last weekend marks the sixth unusual death of this large species in Delaware in recent years.

"It's our first humpback of the year, but it's No. 6 of the unusual mortality event," said Suzanne Thurman, executive director of Lewes-based Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute. 

Since 2016, dozens of humpback whales have been found dead or stranded along East Coast beaches, prompting federal officials to declare "unusual mortality events" because of the high number that remain under investigation. As of Sept. 30, 84 humpback whales washed ashore between Florida and Maine since 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"I feel like we just keep saying the same thing," Thurman said. "I know there are a lot of caring and concerned people out there, I just hope they're listening."

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This most recent dead whale was first spotted floating in the waters off Cape May, New Jersey, on Saturday, Thurman said.

By Sunday, the carcass had crossed the Delaware Bay and was spotted in the ocean-side surf at Herring Point in Cape Henlopen State Park.

By Monday morning, Thurman and state experts assembled the heavy equipment needed to drag the 40,000-pound, nearly 37-foot-long female to higher ground.

While it is hard to put an exact age on the animal, Thurman said she would have been "like a young teenager in human years."

Once secured, Thurman collected several samples from the carcass: an eye, an ear, skin and tissue samples and the whale's tail fluke.

After the carcass was documented and samples were collected, crews from MERR and the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control buried it on the beach.

Some of those samples will be shared with the Smithsonian Institute, Thurman said, for genetic testing. 

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The whale's fluke – that iconic tail end often seen slapping the ocean's surface by whale watchers – could shed more light on this whale's life. Thurman said humpback flukes have distinctive markings, much like fingerprints, and because they so frequently make those displays of marine might, there is a chance this whale's tail has been spotted before.

Thurman said the whale was likely killed by blunt-force trauma from a vessel strike. She said the impact with a vessel broke the whale's cervical vertebrae.

Because the decomposition process had begun before the whale reached Delaware's shore, where it then sloshed in the waves for about 24 hours before the proper equipment could be assembled to tow her to higher ground, it may be difficult to say whether she suffered any underlying health problems that could have contributed to her injury and death.

"We'll send all of this information off to the appropriate entities," she said. "There's a lot of research that goes into the life of these animals."

Two other unusual mortality events for large whale species also remain under investigation. The North Atlantic right whale and the minke whale also have been washing ashore at alarming rates over the last few years.

Large whales are washing up along the East Coast at an alarming rate

Thurman said that while there are common denominators such as the age of the whales and frequency of injuries from vessel strikes, information about any underlying health conditions that could link the deaths has been difficult to find because the whales – like the one in Lewes this weekend – are often too decomposed to collect adequate samples.

"I get so focused on everybody's safety, and then I get off the beach and I feel my heart just sink," Thurman said. 

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.

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