An injured whale washed up on a Bronx beach Sunday, drawing crowds of bystanders and specialists bent on saving the distressed mammal.
The minke whale was discovered stranded in the shallows at Orchard Beach around noon, authorities said.
“He was beached,” Bronx construction worker Bob Doran said, of the approximiately 15 foot-long creature. “Me and some people went in and he turned over and he was all scratched up. He had abrasions underneath his belly.”
The 48-year-old said the chances of having a whale beached in Orchard Beach were “one in a million,”
“I was stunned when I saw him,” Doran added. “How did he come in here? It’s a shallow beach.”
The NYPD’s Harbor and Emergency Services units, along with a marine specialist, used straps to keep the animal in the water while they waited for backup Sunday afternoon.
Beachgoer Konstance Gonzalez said the marine mammal returned to the beach after it was pushed out to sea the first time, and wondered if the creature might be lost.
“I saw two people push him out, they pushed him out pretty far,” the stay-at-home mom recalled. “It looked like he didn’t know where he was going. He swam in a complete circle. Went out and then came back in.”
“Me and my kids thought it was a sea lion at first and when we saw it breath, it’s spout opened and it sprayed a little bit of water–then we knew it was a whale,” the Bronx mom said. “When they moved it you saw all the cuts on its stomach.”
The cause of the minke’s injuries was not immediately clear.
Additional reporting by Emily Saul