Whales have been washing up lifeless in a startling and now-common sight along the Eastern Seaboard, a cause for concern for local communities. Various residents and conservationists are pointing fingers at offshore wind farm surveys conducted as a precursor to building wind energy facilities in the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s very moving in a bad way to see that,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action in Long Branch, New Jersey. “Something that’s so majestic and so beautiful – just kind of lifeless on land.”
Clean Ocean Action is one of several organizations along the Jersey Shore that publicly expressed concern regarding the “scale, scope, and speed” of offshore wind energy development.
Before constructing offshore wind farms, developers employ geophysical surveys to map the seafloor and geological layers beneath it using sound waves. Concerned communities are becoming more suspicious that geophysical surveys play a role in these whale deaths.
And about the time that the work started is when the whales started piling up.
Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Fishing Association
“They’ve been doing all this work,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Fishing Association. “And about the time that the work started is when the whales started piling up.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has classified the humpback whale strandings since 2016 and the minke and North Atlantic right whale strandings since 2017 as “Unusual Mortality Events” (UMEs). This designation highlights the significant and unexpected number of whale strandings, which have happened as survey work picked up in the Atlantic.
