#Whale capsizes boat off NJ coast with two people on board

A whale caused a huge splash on the Jersey Shore
Friends of Seaside Park

A whale caused a huge splash on the Jersey Shore this week, when it jumped up out of the water and hit a small sportfishing vessel — causing it to capsize and forcing its two occupants to have to swim to shore.

The epic whale tale happened about noon Monday in the waters off Seaside Park.

Neither person on the watercraft was injured, and the boat later washed up on the beach.

“A whale breached the surface and landed on a boat only a few dozen yards off D Street. The boat is now beached on the shores. We saw the whole thing unfold,” Friends of Seaside Park said in a Facebook post Monday.

“For those asking, both occupants are okay they were both thrown from the boat. The whale kept swimming and breaching. From our view, the whale is totally fine. Appeared to be a humpback,” the post, which included a picture of the boat, continued.

“This was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed,” Bonnie Schino said in the comments. “I’m so very thankful those guys are ok….horrifying to watch!!!”

Marine Mammal Stranding Center director Robert Schoelkopf told The Post he thought the whale was likely a humpback whale feeding on the “large volume” of small fish called manhaden, which are along the New Jersey coast at the moment.

Schoelkopf said the humpbacks take advantage of the manhaden “pinning” them close to shore.

“Sometimes [the humpbacks] come up from underneath and raise up through the water and unfortunately the boat happened to be in the same location as the whale that was feeding,” Schoelkopf said. “After it broke surface with a mouth full of fish it had to land and the boat was in the way and that’s what it hit.”

Schoelkopf added that his organization tried to collect DNA from the bottom of the boat to confirm the whale type but they were unable to do so “which is a good sign that there were no injuries” on the whale.

“We warn boaters it’s not just them out there fishing, it’s the whales fishing as well,” Schoelkopf said.

With Post wires