By Michael O. Allen and Joan Verdon, Record Staff Writers | Thursday, November 22, 1990
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03
A humpback whale with an unusual affinity for New Jersey waters was given a police escort out of the state Wednesday, after a brief visit to Newark Bay and the Hackensack River.
Whales commonly swim past the Jersey shore on their way to the coastal waters of Maine, but the 30- to 35-foot humpback with a black body and white flippers apparently likes the Garden State, said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine.
Schoelkopf, who helped the state police marine unit guide the whale through New York Harbor on Wednesday, said the same whale visited the Delaware, Raritan, and Shark rivers two years ago.
The wayward whale was first spotted swimming up the Hackensack River on Tuesday afternoon by workers at a Public Service Electric and Gas Co. generating plant in Jersey City. Marine police boats did not spot the mammal again until 7:30 a.m. still in the Hackensack River.
Officer Bryan Stillwell of the state police marine patrol said police boats and workers from the Stranding Center formed a semicircle around the whale and revved their engines to encourage the animal, who risked being grounded as he swam up river, to move seaward.
The whale was escorted through the Kill Van Kull and New York Harbor and past the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
ID: 17324299 | Copyright © 1990, The Record (New Jersey)
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