Humpback whale surfaces under Brooklyn Bridge in surprise appearance as expert has warning for local fishermen

Whale, that’s something you don’t see every day.A humpback made a shocking splash beneath the Brooklyn Bridge Monday — marking the species’ first visit to the East River in two years.“It’s much, much more common to see them in the ocean along the coastline.We have only had rare cases of them moving into the river, but it does happen,” Danielle Brown, Gotham Whale’s director of research, told The Post.A lone snapshot of the cetacean showed it slapping its impressive fluke against the choppy waters around 4 p.m.

as the iconic bridge looms in the distance.Other reports indicate the humpback also swam through the Buttermilk Channel, the narrow passage between Governor’s Island and Red Hook roughly 40 miles away from the whale’s typically feeding grounds along Rockaway Beach.Brown theorizes that the whale might have simply just been hunting down a meal — Atlantic Menhaden, a favorite snack for humpbacks, is commonly found in the water passage, as well as white perch, striped bass, flounder, black sea bass and more.Whales typically avoid the city epicenter, possibly in part because of the high boating traffic, though very rarely brave the waterways to indulge in the surplus of marine cuisine.“The whales will follow fish wherever they need to go.So sometimes that does mean heading north into the river, and it does seem to happen this time of year,” explained Brown.Although she described the sighting as “not totally out of the ordinary,” Brown recalled that the last time a humpback made an appearance in the East River was in 2022.Before that, a humpback was spotted basking in the nearby Hudson River back in 2020.“It’s been a couple years, but we’ve had records of other interesting species in the Hudson River,” Brown continued.“For example, there have been a lot of dolphin sightings in the Hudson River over the years, so we do know it’s possible for these species to move in that direction, but of course, it’s always a surprise �...