Finback whale beached in Queens - Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

Finback whale beached in Queens

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Photo by Ti-Hua Chang Photo by Ti-Hua Chang
NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) -

A whale estimated to be 60 feet long was beached at Breezy Point in Queens on Wednesday.

A local resident reported the beached finback whale just after 9 a.m.

NYPD officers, firefighters, and Riverhead Foundation personnel responded to the scene.

They were trying to get it back into deeper water before an approaching winter storm and low tide.

The FDNY pumped water onto the whale in an effort to keep it alive, but a biologist with the Riverhead Foundation said the whale was in bad shape and probably would not survive another day.

Biologists estimated the emaciated whale's weight at about 25 tons. An adult finback whale should weigh about 45 tons, they said.

The whale was bleeding from its tail and other wounds on its skin.

If the marine mammal dies, Riverhead Foundation biologists will conduct a necropsy to
determine what caused its death, according to Fox 5's Ti-Hua Chang.

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