A routine fishing trip off Long Island turned into a heart-pounding close encounter on Saturday, October 10, when a humpback whale slammed into a boat near Moriches Inlet. Steven Heid and his group spotted the animal feeding on bunker fish a few hundred yards away and shut off their engine, a move recommended to help keep a whale from being hurt by the propeller. Video of the moment shows the whale racing toward the boat as dozens of fish leap through the air, then hitting the side of the vessel hard enough to fling a door open and leave two fish behind on deck. The whole thing unfolded in seconds, and Heid said afterward that both the boat and the whale appeared to be fine.

Experts who reviewed the footage say the whale appears to be a juvenile caught up in lunge feeding, a behavior in which whales surge through the water to scoop up schools of fish, and that it was not attacking the boat but simply chasing its meal. No one on board was injured. The scare comes as more whales are showing up in New York waters, drawn by the return of abundant bunker, and just two months after Governor Kathy Hochul signed the New York Whale Awareness Act into law on August 10. The law requires whale-safe boating education to be added to state boater safety courses and the vessel registration process, and conservation groups urge boaters to stay at least 300 feet from whales and cut the engine if one gets close.