September 20, 2019 — The North Atlantic right whale whose decomposed body was found floating in the waters off Fire Island earlier this week was seen alive last month caught up in fishing line, officials said.
Wounds likely inflicted by plastic rope confirmed he was the rare leviathan seen in the August video. Scientists had previously named him “Snake Eyes” for the twin eye-shaped scars on his head, said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at Anderson Cabot for Ocean Life at Boston’s New England Aquarium.
The fishing line that may have ended the whale’s life — after he had swum in the Atlantic for more than four decades — ran through his mouth and possibly anchored his tail to the sea bed, Hamilton said.