Necropsy performed on whale carcass found off Long Island

By Mary Ann Bragg
Posted Sep 19, 2019

WANTAGH, N.Y. — Researchers completed a necropsy on a North Atlantic right whale Wednesday afternoon at Jones Beach State Park, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The 40-year-old male whale, known as No. 1226 and named “Snake Eyes,” died after being seen swimming in July and August by researchers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Right whale scientists had been gravely concerned about the whale, according to the New England Aquarium Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. When the whale was seen Aug. 6, fishing rope was wrapped through his mouth while his tail appeared to drag toward the bottom, meaning he may have been anchored to the ocean floor. Further aerial surveys failed to spot the whale until his body was reported Monday 5 miles south of Fire Island Inlet off Long Island.

The carcass was towed to the state park. Biological samples were taken for further study.

Critically endangered right whales are experiencing what is called an unusual mortality event along the Atlantic coast, given the high number of deaths since 2017, which currently stand at 29.

The death of Snake Eyes was the first carcass reported this year in U.S. waters. Eight carcasses have been documented this year in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.

Snake Eyes was first spotted in 1979 off the New Hampshire coast when research was just beginning on right whales, according to the Anderson Center. In the 1980s and 1990s, the whale was seen almost exclusively in the Bay of Fundy and in the Roseway Basin, off Nova Scotia.

Starting in 2000, the whale started to feed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where he was seen regularly.