Jersey Shore

Dead Humpback Whale Winds Up Stuck Under Jersey Shore Dock

New Jersey State Police said Sunday that the Marine Services Bureau responded to find the dead humpback whale under the dock of an abandoned home in the Grassy Sound Marina

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A dead humpback whale was found stuck under a dock at a Jersey Shore inlet over the weekend.

New Jersey State Police said Sunday that troopers from the Marine Services Bureau North Wildwood Station responded to Hereford Inlet in North Wildwood to find the dead whale under the dock of an abandoned home in the Grassy Sound Marina.

The Grassy Sound Marina Facebook page said the dead whale appeared to be a humpback whale around 25-feet long. Bob Schoelkopf, the director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, later confirmed to NBC Philadelphia that it was indeed a dead humpback.

The whale had been dead for sometime and its head had already decomposed underwater, Schoelkopf said.

"Members of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center arrived on scene and determined that the whale should be removed from the area in order to provide for safe vessel traffic," state police wrote on Facebook.

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife was called in to take the whale away during high tide Sunday evening, state police said.

The whale was taken to a secured underwater location where it could decompose naturally, Schoelkopf said.

The whale had been dead too long to determine exactly how it had died, Schoelkopf said.

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