Meet Your Neighbors: New York City’s Whales

Meet Your Neighbors: New York’s Natural World

In this series, we connect policy to nature – highlighting native New York species, what we have in common with them, and the roles they play in NYLCV’s policy agenda. Here in Part 2, we meet the whales off NYC. 

By Georgia Good

Picture this: an immense humpback whale, erupting from the water, the Manhattan skyline behind it. This, increasingly, is a common sight.

New York is a coastal city – from erosion to flooding, climate resilience is part of our NYC agenda. Meanwhile, offshore, the waters are teeming with life – and these days, that includes dolphins and whales.

Introducing whales 

Whales are the world’s largest mammals. They’re highly social and intelligent; they live in complex family groups, with unique cultures passed down generations. Some species can hold their breath for over an hour, travel hundreds of thousands of miles each year, and communicate by sound – from the fast, layered clicks of sperm whales, to the slow, strange songs of humpbacks. 

Most whales migrate, making seasonal journeys from colder feeding grounds to warmer breeding grounds. New York was once a pit stop. Now, whales spend whole summers here, feeding and drifting from May to November, rather than heading further north. In winter, they head south to tropical waters.

In 2012, the research organization Gotham Whale began tracking humpback whales in the New York Bight, which reaches from southern New Jersey to eastern Long Island, and offshore to the Hudson Canyon, an underwater valley deeper than the Grand Canyon. That year, they catalogued five. As of November 2025, they’re at 481. 

The species most often seen in New York: humpback whales (most common), minke whales, and the endangered blue, fin, sei, sperm, and North Atlantic right whales. 

Whales were common when NYC was established in 1624, but with colonization came the whaling industry, and for a long time, whales were gone from these waters. Now they’re back. They’re seen from beaches like Rockaway and Coney Island in NYC, and Jones Beach in Long Island, especially this time of year. Whale watching offers a whole new kind of NYC tourism. And if you see a whale, you can contribute as a citizen scientist

Why have whales returned? 

Answer: follow the food. Baleen whales like humpbacks, fins and right whales eat small “forage fish”. The biggest little fish round here? The Atlantic menhaden. 

In 2019, a New York State law banned purse seining for menhaden, a type of fishing that used large nets to catch them on a huge scale. In 2020, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission announced a new menhaden management approach, which better considers ecosystem health. The result: schools of menhaden returned to New York – and so did bigger fish, marine birds, and marine mammals. 

On top of that, for the last fifty years, the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act has helped whales and dolphin populations recover dramatically. So here they are, breaching off of Long Beach, and waving at the Freedom Tower. 

But New York whales are at risk 

The biggest risk? Ship strikes. Like its streets, New York’s waters are busy. Cargo ships, tankers, fishing boats, and cruise ships all cross whale feeding grounds. As they surface-feed in busy, shallow waters, whales – especially juveniles – are highly vulnerable to collisions with ships. And right now, the Marine Mammal Protection Act is under threat – help defend it here. 

The biggest mythical risk? Offshore wind. To achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030, and 100% by 2040, across New York State, we must decarbonize our grid in the next decade. Offshore wind is a vital part of that, and is one of our policy priorities. 

There’s an unfounded myth that offshore wind development puts whales in danger. According to NOAA, there are no known links between large whale deaths and offshore wind.

In fact, by cutting emissions and slowing global warming, wind energy helps whales – the New York Bight is one of the world’s fastest-warming ocean regions, which might be drawing whales closer to shore to feed – and increasing the risk of ship strikes. 

And like beavers, whales are not just victims of environmental issues – they’re our partners in climate and conservation work. We support New York State’s goal of net-zero by 2050 – and whales support it, too. Whales are massive carbon sinks: one whale’s ability to capture carbon is equivalent to thousands of trees. They store carbon in their bodies, which is locked away on the seafloor when they die, and their waste fertilizes algae, which absorbs about half of all carbon on earth. Healthy whale populations mean a healthier planet, and a healthier New York. 

This city’s full of big fish – some have opposable thumbs, and some are the largest mammals on earth. Seen against the skyline, New York whales seem to say: nature’s all around you, even in the urban jungle. When it comes to environmental action, we’re in this together – come and make a splash.

Georgia Good is the Communications Fellow at the New York League of Conservation Voters. She’s a Steinhardt Graduate Scholar in Environmental Conservation Education at NYU, with a focus on climate communications and advocacy. She’s had comms roles at Climate Arc, the Centre for Climate Engagement, University of Cambridge, and Mercy Corps, and she has a BA in English from UCL, UK.