Wind Farm Blamed For Surge In Dead Whales On U.S. Atlantic Coast

Two dozen dead whales were found washed up along the Atlantic Coast of the United States in the past few months. The state of is experiencing an unexplained rise in fatalities. New Jersey A massive offshore wind farm is being built, according to conservationists. This could have an adverse effect on whale navigation.

Federal scientists insist that there is no direct evidence linking the construction with the spike in dead whales. But local lawmakers, environmentalist groups and conservative commentators have suggested that wind turbines are the culprit.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tracked 184 “Rare mortality events” for Humpback whales in the area since 2016 — roughly 25 per year, but over the past few months, there have been At least 22 large baleens The region has 15 humpbacks that were stranded, which is more than last year’s annual total.

“It’s an alarming surge,” Sheila Dean is the director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, New Jersey.

Roughly a third of the corpses have washed up on the shores of New York and New Jersey — that’s significant because a massive wind farm is being constructed off New Jersey’s coast. The state has invested $10 billion in the project. They hope it will produce 11 Gigawatts per year by 2040. There is a growing opposition to the project.

Thousands of protesters gathered on Sunday — “international whale day” — at Pleasant Point Beach in New Jersey to lobby for a moratorium on offshore wind developments. Clean Ocean Action was the original group behind the effort. However, they expressed concern over the possible impact that larger developments could have on the environment.

Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress

“At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales,” According to the Official Website of the NOAA, “and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys. We will continue to gather data to help us determine the cause of death for these mortality events.”

Although investigations have not linked the wind farm’s construction to the excessive deaths, employees at the NOAA raised concerns about possible risks before the surge.

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Sean Hayes, head of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s protected-species branch, NOAA. Warned The regulators in 2013 that “additional noise, vessel traffic and habitat modifications due to offshore wind development will likely cause added stress [to whales and] result in additional population consequences.”

Echolocation is a method that whales and other cetaceans use to sense the environment. Excessive noise can distort their perceptions, leading them to dangerous waters.

Advocates of the turbines have argued that the ships involved only account for 2% of the total traffic in the area — the port of New York and New Jersey is the Third busiest in the United States — and whatever minor marine disruptions that are created would be offset by a decline in greenhouse emissions.

30 mayors in coastal communities There are several sitting members of Congress in the region, including Chris Smith, Jeff Van Drew (R–NJ), as well as Jeff Van Drew (R–NJ). Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), called for a moratorium. Tucker Carlson, Fox News highlighted The issue will be distributed to a national audience.

The Governor’s Office issued a statement to respond to the public outcry. It expressed sympathy to concerned environmentalists, while suggesting that some critics were not concerned about whales and were simply exploiting the situation in order to stop a project they had opposed.

“We know that many residents, both in our shore communities and across the state, share our genuine concern for marine life and its survival,” The statement was as follows: “But we also know that there are those out there who are motivated not by a concern for our environment but by their own political ideologies and opposition to the very efforts that will preserve and protect our environment for generations to come.”

Others were even more skeptical.

“It’s just a cynical disinformation campaign,” Greenpeace oceans director John Hocevar told USA Today.

The cause of the stranded whales surge is still not clear, but it is undeniable.

“I’ve gotten lots of information from different sources,” Kim Wetzel (57), a Ocean City resident, was at Sunday’s rally. “and you can’t argue with the fact that 10 whales have washed up.”