An adult humpback whale was videotaped swimming unusually close to the shore in Manasquan on Monday, when one expert said the big ocean mammal may have been looking for lunch.
“It’s very unusual to see them get that close,” said Karl Vilacoba, communications director for Monnouth University’s Urban Coast Institute. “You can see that the wave was breaking over it.”
Vilacoba and others retweeted the video after it was originally tweeted by photographer and videographer Tom Lozinski, who regularly shoots for the Urban Coast Institute and captured the humpback footage using a drone camera.
Vilacoba could not say just how big the whale was, but an adult humpback, Megaptera novaeangliae, can measure up to 52 feet long and weigh 33 tons.
Monday’s site was just three days after another humpback was spotted in Monmouth County waters, up the Shrewsbury River, between Sea Bright and Highlands.
Vilacoba said the whale off Manasquan may have been feeding on bunker, or menhaden, which is a staple of their diet along the Jersey Shore.
While Monday’s whale was unusually close to the beach, Vilacoba said the one in the Shrewsbury on Friday were among increasing numbers of Humpbacks seen it the area in recent years.
“They’ve been getting closer and closer, but certainly in this last decade they’ve really rebounded off the Jersey Shore, off New York waters,” he said. “There are a lot of people looking into this right now, and the thinking is there’s more menhaden — there’s a little bay fish, some people call them bunker. For the humpbacks, that’s a great dinner.”
While bunker is all a humpback is looking to eat — it doesn’t even have any teeth to chew much bigger prey — Vilacoba said swimmers, surfers, boaters and other humans should steer clear of the aquatic beasts.
“They’re massive; you should really keep a healthy distance,” he said. Running into one, he said, “would be like getting hit by a truck.”
This humpback whale was spotted in the Shrewsbury River on Friday, May 29, three days before one was videotaped swimming in the Manasquan surf on Monday.New Jersey State Police
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