Federal officials are investigating after a whale was found dead on the bow of a ship that was docked at a South Jersey port on the Delaware River.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center said it is analyzing the mammal, believed to be a fin whale between 25 and 30 feet long, after it was lodged on the ship that arrived in Gloucester City.
The stranding was reported to the U.S. Coast Guard around 11:15 p.m. Sunday, the nonprofit center said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement was also investigating, the center said. Both the Coast Guard and NOAA were reached by NJ Advance Media for comment, but a request for further information was not immediately fulfilled.
The center said its volunteer team was preparing to perform a necropsy, a study in which the whale’s cause of death is investigated. A staging area was being set up to secure the carcass, the stranding center said.
A photo shared by the center shows the whale slumped over on the ship’s bow with its fin raised. The photograph appears to show the ship docked at one of the commercial ports along the Delaware River, with part of the Philadelphia skyline in the background.
Michele Pagel, the center’s assistant director, did not have additional information about the whale death but called the investigation an “active situation.”
The Gloucester City area is often a busy travel route for commercial shipping, as several ports line the river, with service between New Jersey and Philadelphia.
