Saving Seafood

Why whales are returning to New York City’s once polluted waters ‘by the ton’

August 29, 2017 — Growing up on his father’s boat off the Rockaways in Queens, New York, Tom Paladino was always on the lookout for whales.

“My father started a fishing business in 1945 when he came back from the service, so I never really had a job. I was just on the boat my whole life,” Paladino said as he steered his own boat, the American Princess, back to shore.

The giant animals rarely ventured into the city’s busy, dirty waterways, Paladino told ABC News, and “in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, we used to see one whale a year.”

But on a recent August Saturday, Paladino and Paul Sieswerda, the founder of the nonprofit Gotham Whale, spotted five humpbacks and more than 100 dolphins during a four-hour tour, just three miles off the Rockaways.

“People don’t really connect New York City with whales at all,” Sieswerda told ABC News. “I’ve been involved with wildlife all my life, and I am just so amazed it’s coming back by the ton — literally by the ton — with whales.”

In 2011, when Sieswerda, 75, started leading whale watching tours after retiring from his job at the New York Aquarium, the group logged just three sightings with a total of five whales, he said. More than one whale can be present at any given sighting, he added.

“We called it a whale watch ‘adventure,’ because it was an adventure, if we were going to see whales or not,” said Sieswerda.“Then in 2014, the number of whales we saw was more than the previous three years put together.”

Read and watch the full story at ABC News

Increased whale sightings in New York City waters a sign of cleaner waters

July 6, 2017 — New video shows a diver off the coast of Tasmania coming face to face with a whale recently in a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

But you don’t have to travel to Australia to see these marine giants–they’re now in the waters off New York City.

Though the Hudson River was once a national symbol for pollution, humpback whales have become a more common sight around New York and New Jersey, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor.

A whale sighting may look like an acrobatic display with its fluke set against the city’s skyscrapers, but they’re actually lunge feeding–attacking fish called menhaden.

“One of the things that brings everything together is this food chain,” said Paul Sieswerda, the president of the non-profit Gotham Whale. He says menhaden are thriving because the water is cleaner.

Read the full story at CBS This Morning

NEW YORK: Why researchers think humpback whale swam up the Hudson

November 22, 2016 — The whale spotted in the Hudson River Thursday in Friday was likely led there by food, the head of a local whale research group said.

Photos of the humpback whale showed it “lunge feeding,” said Paul Sieswerda, president of Gotham Whale.

“That’s when they come up and break the surface and consume these bait balls of menhaden,” he said.

Predators drive menhaden, sometimes known as bunker fish, into tight balls. This allows whales to open their mouths and eat them all at once.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Beware: Sharks are on the rise near East Coast

August 15, 2016 — “There are definitely more sharks in the area,” Paul Sieswerda, former curator of the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, told The Post. A perfect storm of successful shark conservation efforts, less-polluted waters, and warmer ocean temperatures from climate change has made our shores more welcoming to bait fish like menhaden — and the sharks who love them.

“It’s kind of like the menhaden are the wildebeests of the African plains — everything likes eating them and there are more every year,” Sieswerda said.

He said the huge schools of menhaden, a k a bunker, also attract seals, which is a favorite of great white sharks.

Read the full story at the New York Post