By Ryan Schwach
A 30- to 40-foot sei whale washed up on the beach in Rockaway on Thursday afternoon.
The whale was found on Beach 96th Street on the peninsula, marking the first time a whale has been beached on Rockaway’s shores this year.
The city’s Parks Department is working with wildlife groups to help determine the cause of death. They’ll later bury the whale in the sand.
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation secured the site on Thursday. The Atlantic Marine Conservation Society and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration planned to conduct a necropsy Friday morning.
Robert DiGiovanni, executive director of the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, told the Eagle that they currently believe the creature to be a male sei whale, an endangered species similar to a fin whale.
They believe it was either a sub-adult or a fully grown adult, based on its size.
DiGiovanni said they are working to determine if the whale was killed by natural causes, like old age or disease, or by anthropomorphic causes, like being hit by a boat, eating something toxic or being entangled in debris.
“When we conduct the necropsy, we look for all of those things,” he said.
Sei whales are close cousins of blue whales, and are among the largest species in the world.
They are also very similar and often confused with fin whales. The only obvious difference is that sei whales have a different coloring on their jaws.
Whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries brought their numbers down significantly, and they are now a protected species.
“We know that we have them here. But to what extent, that’s some of the things that people are looking at,” DiGiovanni said.