Two whales found dead within two days in NJ, NY waters

Marine biologists are taking a closer look after the remains of a young minke whale washed ashore in New Jersey Friday — less than 24 hours after another dead whale was found floating off Staten Island.

On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard spotted a 16- to 18-foot-long whale “floating in the Lower Bay/Raritan Bay area.”

A tracking tag was planted on the carcass, which federal investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipate will land near Sandy Hook, NJ, within days. Once ashore, the deceased animal will be examined.

Then around 6:30 a.m. on Friday, “a small, deceased whale” washed up near Trenton Avenue in Lavallette, NJ.

The ball of blubber “was transported to the [Lavallette] public works yard and has been secured for necropsy,” according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ.

Also a minke — the smallest of the baleen whale species — it was between 10 and 12 feet in length.

NOAA spokeswoman Andrea Gomez told The Post a probe into “unusual mortality events” involving the endangered minke whale began back in 2017, following a spike in deaths up and down the Atlantic from Maine to South Carolina.

A total of 27 whales were found dead in 2017.

NOAA defines “unusual mortality events” as “a stranding that is unexpected; involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population; and demands immediate response.”

Since the NOAA investigation launched seven years ago, 26 whales have died in New York’s waters, and 14 in New Jersey.

There were 8 whale strandings in 2024 in New York and New Jersey, Gomez said.

Investigators have yet to offer up any working theories on what could be behind the rash of deaths.

“We don’t know yet if something is happening in the Atlantic that is causing all of these UMEs [unusual mortality events] for different species, which is why the work of our stranding networks and researchers is so important,” according to NOAA’s website.