A video trending on social media caught a humpback whale swimming in the Hudson River.
The short video clip posted on Twitter shows the whale in the river at around 4 pm on Tuesday, December 8. Andres Javier was the first person to share the footage, and he captioned the video as “So cool!”. The video shows the massive mammal spouting the water from its blowhole while swimming south down the river.
Gotham Whale commented on the video and said the whale might have come to Hudson River searching for food.
Gotham Whale is a nonprofit organization which is doing research on Atlantic whales since 2011. They suggested that the sea creature must have visited the river as these days the water has plenty of food. They also said this is not happening for the first time as earlier in 2016, a whale was spotted in the river, and it remained there for about a week.
Paul Sieswerda, the Gotham Whale’s founder, said Whales are very rarely found in New York harbor, which is good as it is a densely populated place.
Authorities said the whale sightings have increased by 540% in New York for the last eight years. The organization started tracking them in 2010 when a total of 5 whales were spotted. In 2019, 272 whales were found in NYC’s waters, and almost all of them were humpbacks.
The organizations said they had informed the authorities, and they are requested to consider arranging a visit for whale-watchers.
The nearby residents are asked to notify the officials if they see a whale in the water again. On Tuesday morning, another testimony of sighting was reported, which indicates the mammal is still in the area. The boat operators are told to remain careful because as long as the animal is in the water, there is a risk of collision with the boat traffic.