60ft finback whale stranded in New York dies

A 60ft finback whale that became stranded in Jamaica Bay, in the New York suburb of Queens, has died.

Local police and firefighters spent Wednesday morning hosing water at the mammal when it was halfway out of the water.

At high tide, the whale drifted away before washing ashore again on Thursday morning, when it sadly died, according to Mendy Garron of the National Marine Fisheries Service

Locals who had flocked to see the whale were rooting for its survival. According to an ITN video, one woman said: "Everybody down here wanted a positive outlook and want it to go back into the wild and be free with its family, but we know it's a sick animal at this point, and it's not looking good."

Finbacks are second in size only to the blue whale, and are considered an endangered species after whaling severely damaged their numbers before a 1987 ban.

Experts had not held out a lot of hope for the animal after it washed up on the bay side of Breezy Point. Finbacks average 70 feet in length and 70 tons in weight, but this one appeared to weigh only about 20 to 30 tons.

Scratches and streaks of blood on its body suggested it may have been hit by a boat.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Kimberly Durham of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research, said marine experts would perform a necropsy to confirm a cause of death, before burying the whale.

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