A fearless founder with a dream.

After retiring in 2009 from a long career as a Curator of fishes and mammals at both the New England and NY Aquariums, Paul L. Sieswerda was drawn to studying the humpback whales that were showing up in the waters around New York City to feed on Menhaden. 'The whales came to me,' he said. Sieswerda developed the 501c3 organization, Gotham Whale, to study, educate about, and advocate for the marine mammals around NYC.

Since Paul Sieswerda founded Gotham Whale, it has expanded to research the whales of NJ and NY in the waters of the NY Bight. Gotham Whale maintains a database of marine mammal sightings from their observations that started aboard the American Princess, and today includes seven whale watch companies, along with many community science contributions. Gotham Whale is proud to keep The NYC Humpback Whale Catalog which identifies individual whales from photographs of their flukes. We track the species, location, and behavior to gain insight into the whales as they come closer and closer to the Big City.

Paul was a fan of and fell in love with the oceans through watching Jacques Cousteau and became a diver at a young age. Collecting data and research for aquarium exhibits, he traveled the world from the arctic, to the Caribbean to Africa — making many friends along the way. He is the accomplished author of 'Stranded,' a fiction novel about a whale research organization, as well as a children's book titled, 'Big Whale, Big City.' Today, the team at Gotham Whale carries on Paul's legacy by growing our efforts and making an impact.