A humpback whale recently seen off the coast of Manhattan marked New York's 49th whale sighting for this year, an expert said.
"It's becoming more and more frequent," Paul Siewada of the Gotham Whale research division told ABC News. "What's caused so much commotion is that people in New York City are just becoming aware that whales are in and around New York."
Many of the ocean mammals are taking their "vacation" near the city this summer, and the number of whale sightings near New York has been growing over recent years, Siewada said.
"We know [the whales] go from southern waters down to the coast of the Dominican Republic during the winter and go up to Maine and Massachusetts in the summer to feed," Siewada told ABC News. "We think the whales have found a suitable feeding ground right here in New York."
The higher number of whales spotted around Manhattan comes as a result of cleaner water in the area that gives the creatures a better feeding ground, and whales will likely keep coming to the city.
"My boat captain loves to say the New York City is the new Cape Cod," said Siewada.
Both humpback whales and great white sharks have been seen in greater numbers off New York and New Jersey this summer, The Guardian reported.
The whales feed by gulping down hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish, eating the fish and filtering ocean water out through their baleen grills.
Local fishermen along the coast as well as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials have reported increased shark numbers.
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