A cruise ship headed toward New York collided with a whale, killing it and dragging its body up the Hudson River, and such incidents between ships and whales are happening more often, officials say.
The whale, from a species known as sei whales, was not discovered until the ship docked at its port earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
Three collisions between ships and whales along the Eastern Seaboard have been reported in the last three weeks in what officials said is a higher-than-usual rate for such incidents at this time of year.
Normally, there's about one report every two or three weeks of a ship striking a whale, they said.
Twenty-eight whale strikes were reported in northeastern Atlantic waters from 2006 to 2010, NOAA says, and globally a survey by the National Marine Fisheries Service of data from 1975 to 2002 recorded 292 incidences of ship strikes involving large whales.
The head of a rescue organization for marine mammals headquartered on Long Island, outside New York City, said he was noticing "more evidence of ship strikes and that's definitely a concern."
Rob DiGiovanni said his Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation would, in the past, have seen a large whale struck by ships only every couple of years.
"Now we get a couple a year," he said.
NOAA has issued reminders about whale-protection measures in place and urges boaters follow speed limits and required distances in an effort to prevent such collisions.
"Nobody wants to hit a whale," spokeswoman Marjorie Mooney-Seus said. "So we want people to have a greater awareness that they're out there now."
An increase in fish that make up a major part of whales' food supplies may be bringing the giant marine mammals closer to shore, experts said.
An increase of a kind of fish known as a sea lance, also called a sand eel, has brought large numbers of humpback whales to coastal waters off Boston.
A necropsy on the whale struck by the New York-bound cruise ship determined it died of blunt force injuries, comfirming the collision with the ship killed it.
That incident was on May 4, while a similar incident in which a whale was killed and dragged to port by a container ship occurred May 7, Mooney-Seus explained. She was unable to provide details on the third incident, except to say it apparently involved a fin whale.
NOAA is conducting an investigation of that strike, she said.
