This whale is making a splash!
Eagle-eyed water watchers spotted a whale in the Hudson River off the Holland Tunnel Sunday, marking the third time in less than a week the bunker-hungry mammal has surfaced in the city’s waterways.
The Coast Guard warned maritime vessels to watch out for the whale, at about noon, and one witness said it stopped breaching the waters near Pier 88 by about 4:45 p.m.
“It was breaching every two or three minutes for about an hour this afternoon. It was surreal,” said Michael Moss, 36, who started watching the whale after his wife, Katherine Rikkola, spotted its tail at about 3:30 p.m., from their home in Weehawken, N.J.
“We have binoculars, so we looked over by Pier 88, Pier 90, and it was right outside the pier there.”
Paul Sieswerda of Gotham Whale couldn’t confirm if it was the same humpback whale seen by the Statue of Liberty on Wednesday, or near the George Washington Bridge Friday afternoon.
“That’s where it comes into the science part of it. Without good documentation we can’t say for sure, but certainly it would be the logical assumption to make. But where it went all day yesterday we don’t know,” he said.
Sieswerda says he has a “fluke shot” photo from an earlier sighting — essentially a photo of the tail that could serve as a fingerprint of sorts — that he can check against any new pictures and videos his organization gets.
And the whale may be a repeat New York City tourist — one witness made a similar sighting in the Hudson from her window off W. 63rd St. last November.
Rachel Dubroff, 39, said she didn’t grab a camera when she spotted the whale last year, but this time, she was ready. She took video Saturday, and watched again on Sunday afternoon
“It looked like a humpback whale,” she said. “I’ve seen them in Hawaii and the Caribbean and Australia. You don’t usually expect to see outside your window in the Hudson river.”
Dubroff said she was worried about the second sighting, because of the Hudson River’s boat traffic.
Sieswerda said he’s optimistic that the whale knows how to avoid nearby vessels.
“If I was its parent, I would be saying get out of the street, but so far so good,” he said.
Gotham Whale has catalogued more than 100 whale sightings in the New York City area this year. The whales are usually seen along the New Jersey shoreline and Rockaway Beach.
