Dead humpback whale washes ashore at Montauk's Ditch Plains

A dead humpback whale washed ashore at Ditch Plains in Montauk, turning one of Suffolk County’s most visible summer beaches into a cleanup site as marine crews, state regulators and local officials worked out how to remove the carcass.

The whale was first reported floating about seven miles south of Ditch Plains Beach on Thursday morning, then was believed to be the same animal that reached shore by Friday morning. It was estimated at about 40 feet long. AMSEAS said the whale appeared to be a female humpback and was severely scavenged, a sign it may have been dead for some time before it drifted in.

The response now involves AMSEAS, the Town of East Hampton, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and NOAA Fisheries. That kind of coordination matters on a beach like Ditch Plains, where a large carcass can quickly become both a public safety issue and an access problem for beachgoers in the middle of the season. The East Hampton Star reported that south winds were carrying the odor inland toward the Montauk Shores Condominiums, adding a nuisance impact for nearby residents.

The Montauk stranding also fits into a much wider Atlantic pattern that marine scientists have tracked for years. NOAA Fisheries says elevated humpback whale mortalities have occurred along the Atlantic coast from Maine through Florida since January 2016, and the Atlantic Coast humpback whale unusual mortality event was declared in April 2017. In a NOAA media teleconference, officials said 178 humpback whales were included in the event at the time of that briefing.

NOAA’s first major announcement on the issue in 2016 said 41 humpback whales had died from Maine to North Carolina at that point in the investigation. The agency also maintains dead-animal location maps for the humpback whale unusual mortality event, underscoring that the Montauk carcass is part of a documented, multi-year mortality event rather than an isolated beaching. News 12 also noted that a second whale carcass was being monitored offshore near Block Island, raising the possibility that more than one large whale death is unfolding in the region at once.