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Dead Whale Impaled on Luxury Liner, Officials Say

By  Janon Fisher and Aidan Gardiner | May 5, 2014 1:36pm | Updated on May 5, 2014 4:26pm

 The NYPD's Harbor Patrol helped tow a dead whale to New Jersey Monday May 4, 2014, officials said.
The NYPD's Harbor Patrol helped tow a dead whale to New Jersey Monday May 4, 2014, officials said.
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BROOKLYN — A whale found dead in New York Harbor Monday morning is believed to have been impaled on the bow of a luxury cruise ship over the weekend, authorities said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received photographs and reports of a Sei whale stuck to the front of a large cruise Sunday, according to the federal research agency's spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus.

And on Monday morning the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers retrieved the carcass of a 30-foot whale near the Bay Ridge Channel by the Brooklyn Army Terminal after getting a call from the NYPD's harbor unit, Army spokesman Chris Gardner said.

"We suspect that it is the same whale, but we won't know until a necropsy is done," Mooney-Seus said.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J., and the Riverhead Foundation will determine on Tuesday what species of whale was found in New York Harbor and how it died.

"It's more common than not to see this in New York Harbor," the center's founding director Robert Schoelkopf said. The shipping channels intersect with the migration paths of larger whales, who are chasing herring and mackerel moving up the Eastern seaboard.

The Norwegian Breakaway, a 1,068-foot luxury liner, was stranded for several hours on Sunday and had to be towed to Pier 88 due to propeller problems, according to a New York Post report.

A cruise line spokeswoman did not respond to a request of comment.