Suddenly, a juvenile humpback whale, known as NYC0318 in local records, bursts through the surface of the water, engulfing thousands of small, oily fish. View image in fullscreen Chris St Lawrence of Gotham Whale, which tracks whales and other marine mammals off New York and New Jersey. In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) delisted the whales in New York waters (considered as part of the West Indies population) under the Endangered Species Act. The New York Bight hosts an extraordinary array of endangered whales: blue, fin, sei, sperm and North Atlantic right whales. The common draw is food, but humpback feeding behaviour compounds the risk.