Shark Week returns to Discovery starting Sunday, June 26. Maybe that means Rockaway’s sharks will give us a break from closing our beaches, as they’ll be too busy on TV. There will be one guaranteed local wildlife sighting included on this year’s Shark Week programming. Of all things, it wasn’t a shark, but a humpback whale that washed up on our shores in May 2025.
On May 3, 2025, a 42-foot, heavily decomposed male humpback whale washed up on Beach 97th Street, with some signs that a shark had taken advantage of the free meal while the carcass was floating in the Atlantic, as it was covered in bite marks. As we do with almost any deceased whale that washes up on our shores, we posted some footage to our Rockaway Times social media pages.
Among the nearly 290K viewers, someone scavenging for specific footage found exactly what they were looking for. In September 2025, award-winning Rockaway Times Managing Editor Katie McFadden, who recorded the video, received an email. A representative from Pioneer Productions, a documentary production company based in London said, “We’re doing a project involving shark and whale interaction on the east coast, it will ultimately end up on Discovery Channel, and your footage of the bite marks on the carcass would be a great addition to the story and the other footage we’ve acquired.”
McFadden, a longtime fan of Shark Week, was thrilled by the opportunity. Even better, she was adequately paid for the use of her footage after signing a release for the company to reserve the right to utilize the footage how they see fit. “I absolutely love sharks and have been watching Shark Week for at least 20 years. Just learning that something I recorded in Rockaway would be used in a program on Shark Week was super exciting,” McFadden said. “I can’t wait to see a clip from our own beach be featured in the show.”
Five seconds of that dead whale clip will be included in a Shark Week program called “Sharkzilla Takes New York.” The show will premiere on Friday, July 31 at 9 p.m. on Discovery.
In true dramatic Shark Week fashion, the producers took some creative liberty with the program. A Discovery press release with a description of the program reads, “After a wave of mauled marine life washes ashore in New York, conservation biologist Dr. Craig O’Connell launches an investigation to find the culprit. When it leads to an old nuclear dumping ground teaming with great whites and makos, he is left with the chilling theory that the predator may be radioactive. A deeper dive reveals an unexpected hotspot for massive makos off the coast of the Hamptons, suggesting that these waters may be hiding something even bigger beneath the surface.”
So, grab a bucket of chum, and dive into Shark Week, and look out for Rockaway’s whale buffet on July 31.
