JERSEY CITY -- A dead whale that surfaced in the Hudson River earlier this week just off Caven Point in Jersey City will be towed out to sea for disposal, the Army Corps of Engineers said.
The carcass, which the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said is a "30-foot long fin whale," was too big for a drift collection vessel to remove, ACOE Chief of Public Affairs for the New York District Ken Wells said.
To keep the whale from posing a hazard to ships in the meantime, ACOE tied the whale to a debris barge while waiting for the stranding center to determine the next step, Wells said.
Michael Embrich, an ACOE spokesman, told The Jersey Journal early this afternoon that a final decision has since been made to dispose of the whale by towing it out to sea.
Details about when the disposal will happen weren't immediately available.
As for ensuring the carcass doesn't float back to the coastline, Embrich said one method that might be used is towing the whale far off into the ocean and chaining weights to it so it sinks.
On Monday at 5:44 p.m., the Coast Guard received a report of a whale on the "bulbous bow" -- a protruding bulb at the front of a ship just below the waterline -- of a commercial vessel bound for Port Elizabeth, Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowe said.
However, when the ship was tied up at a pier, the whale could no longer be seen on the bow, according to Rowe.
Rowe said a pilot boat discovered the carcass of a whale, believed to be the same one from Monday, floating in the same general area on Tuesday.
Jonathan Lin may be reached at jlin@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @jlin_jj. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.