Upworthy · 18 hours ago

New York City Was Visited by Nine Different Whales in One Day and the Photos Are Incredible

Nine humpback whales appeared in New York Harbor on a single August day in 2022, breaching and feeding against the Manhattan skyline-a sight that would have been unthinkable decades ago when these giants were nearly extinct. The spectacle wasn't luck but consequence: cleaner waters from the 1972 Clean Water Act transformed the harbor from a place whales merely passed through into somewhere they choose to stay. "Amazing day to say the least," Gotham Whale tweeted, sharing images that captured both wonder and warning about potential ship collisions. Since then, the whale population has grown so robust that nearly 500 humpbacks now appear in researchers' catalogs, turning what was once a once-in-a-lifetime sighting into evidence of what happens when humans make room for other lives to flourish. The traffic problem New York finally wants more of.