33 Foot Long Humpback Whale Found Dead on New Jersey Beach

Sea Isle City, New Jersey - Bob Schoelkopf, founder of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, said it was a young male, about 33 feet long, and probably weighs about 20 tons. There were no visible signs of injury or trauma.

Schoelkopf said one or two whales beach themselves along the Jersey coast each year; this is the second of 2016.

The whale was first spotted before noon, floating offshore around Ocean City.  It eventually washed onto the beach at Sea Isle near 20th Street around 2 p.m.

A crowd of about 100 people had gathered on the beach behind yellow police tape, braving the overwhelming stench to get a glimpse of it.

"It’s sad to see such a beautiful animal dead on the beach like this," said Ann Heffer, a vacationer from Exton, Pa.  "I’m glad this doesn’t happen every day."

Officials with the Stranding Center and the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife were on the scene, said Sea Isle City spokeswoman Katherine Custer.

A necropsy will be performed on the beach Saturday morning to learn how it died. Until then, officials brought in heavy machinery to draw the body further up the beach and away from waves that could drag it out to sea again.

A heavy-duty chain tied around its tail snapped under the weight of the animal. Crews had to shorten the length of the chain and add a second, canvas strap to successfully drag it up the beach.  No one was injured when the chain snapped.

The necropsy should take about eight hours, Schoelkopf said.

Humpbacks can live up to 50 years, Schoelkopf said, but this one was a juvenile.

Experts Say This Summer is Brewing up Something of a Perfect Storm for Shark Attacks

More than half a dozen shark attacks have happened in North Carolina in the last three weeks, nearly as many as happened all of last year.

Experts say this summer is brewing up something of a perfect storm for the attacks. But while they seem like they're everywhere, shark populations are actually dwindling.

And the real reason there have been so many attacks likely isn't because there are more sharks in the water — it's because there are more people swimming in it than ever before.

  

Shark expert George Burgess of the International Shark Attack File explained the trend in a recent NPR interview:

Shark populations in the US and around the world are at perhaps all-time lows. On the other hand, the human population continues to rise every year. We have no curbing of that.

And fundamentally [a] shark attack ... is driven by the number of humans in the water more than the number of sharks, and when areas such as the Carolinas become popular tourist destinations, as they have, there's [sic] more people entering the water. You're going to end up having more shark bites.

  

While a number of studies in recent decades have suggested that shark populations around the world are all declining sharply, it's hard for scientists to get exact numbers on them.

  

Nevertheless, by comparing recent population numbers with past data, we can get a general estimate of how sharks are doing across the globe, marine biologist and University of Miami graduate student David Shiffman explains in a recent post on his blog.

 One frequently-cited survey of data published in 2003 from fisheries gathered between 1986 and 2000 suggests that shark populations are in deep trouble.

  

The data from that survey found that hammerhead populations were declining by an average of 89%; great whites by 79%; tiger sharks by 65%, thresher sharks by 80%, blue sharks by 60%, and mako sharks by 70%:

(Science/"Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic") Declines in estimated relative abundance for coastal shark species: (A) hammerhead, (B) white, (C) tiger, and (D) coastal shark species; and oceanic shark species: (E) thresher, (F) blue, (G) mako, and (H) oceanic whitetip.

"We may never know exactly how many sharks are out there, or exactly how many are killed each year. What we do know, from a variety of different types of analysis, is that many species of sharks are decreasing in population at alarming rates," writes Shiffman.

Why are sharks in trouble?

While vigilante shark hunters can do significant damage to local shark populations, the real problem centers around two main activities: Hunting sharks for their meat and fins and irresponsible fishing practices. Each year, thousands of sharks are caught and trapped in fishing nets and other fishing gear.

And while it might seem like good news that there are fewer sharks around, it's actually a very big problem for the rest of us.

In many places, sharks are apex predators, meaning they occupy the spot right at the top of the food chain. If their populations aren't healthy and stable, it throws all of the other life in the oceans out ofbalance.

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Plus, sharks have a bunch of characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to exploitation http://www.seethewild.org/shark-threats/, including the fact that they live long lives, mature late in life, and have very few young.

Ocean City, Maryland: Hammerhead Shark Spotted Near the Beach

A Photographer was taking wedding photos Wednesday near 36th Street in Ocean City when he heard yelling coming from a few blocks away.

"You could just see a pretty big fin," he said.

It happened shortly after 5 p.m., when lifeguards are off duty, but Denny said within 10 minutes guards responded to the area and the water was cleared. The Ocean City Beach Patrol became aware of the shark at that time and was able to identify it as a hammerhead, Captain Butch Arbin said Thursday.

"Yesterday we had something come into the surf — and that can really be anything when we first see it, like it can be a whale carcass, a turtle, a log, or in this case, a shark — so we moved people away from the area and are monitoring it at this time," Arbin said.

The Beach Patrol is still monitoring the area between 22nd and 52nd streets.

"We don't want people infringing on the marine mammal, and we don't want it to hurt anyone, either," Arbin said. "It sounds funny but, to us, this is normal procedure for anything that enters the surf zone that usually isn't there."

Arbin said the shark's activities were unusual because it entered and left the surf zone twice.

"We're not sure if it tried to beach itself, but it stayed in the surf zone 'til dark last night," Arbin said.

If the shark beaches itself, the patrol would notify personnel with the National Aquarium and the Department of Natural Resources, who they have already been in contact with.

Denny is also a surf instructor, and he said it's not unusual for him to see smaller sand sharks along the coast. But seeing what he called a large hammerhead close to the shore in about 2 feet of water was surprising he said.

"It's pretty rare," he said.

According the Denny, more than 100 people gathered to watch the shark Wednesday.

This sighting comes two days after a dead hammerhead washed ashore in Fenwick Island, and three days after another hammerhead gave birth while beached in Ocean City. It is unclear if those events are related, because the shark was buried but not examined.