Baby Whale Dies After Days in Gowanus Canal

A baby whale that spent the past two days swimming just outside the locks of the Gowanus Canal died at dusk yesterday.

The 12-foot Minke whale appeared fit and lively when discovered by the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday, but its health took a turn for the worse, officials said. The whale was nicknamed Sludgy because it appeared to be covered with an oily sediment.

"The swimming pattern changed and it had scratches from contact with a bulkhead," the rescue program director for the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research, Kimberly Durham, said. The foundation is the agency in charge of monitoring whales in city waters.

The Minke, identified as NY 3673-07 because whales aren't generally named unless rescued, died when it washed up on a jetty belonging to the Hess Corporation on 21st Street in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn, Ms. Durham said. Observers said the whale was swimming quietly and then suddenly began splashing frantically.

As the sun crept behind the Manhattan skyline last night, officials lost sight of the whale, Ms. Durham said. However, she said she was confident that if the whale went undiscovered by the end of the evening, it would be found at daybreak.

"It will sink and then float after body gasses build up," she said.

The Army Corps of Engineers offered its facility at Caven Point in Jersey City, N.J., to serve as the ward where the foundation will likely perform a whale autopsy, known as a necropsy, today. The army corps will likely haul the whale onto the deck of one of its vessels, and transport it to the facility that is equipped with a submergible dock, Ms. Durham said.

Before the death of the whale, officials from the foundation considered forcing NY 3673-07 out of the harbor by herding it with police department and Department of Environmental Conservation vessels, Ms. Durham said. The herding method, which uses piercing sounds created by the boat engines to induce panic in the whale, is used only in "last-ditch efforts," she said.

"If it was fully debilitated herding it out would have made people feel better, but it would have been bad for the animal," Ms. Durham said.

The necropsy will not only inform officials about the specific factors that led to the death of NY 3673-07, but will also provide scientists with additional information about Minke whales. If it is found that the Minke was a nursing calf, scientists will have more information about the reproductive cycles of the species, Ms. Durham said.