A humpback whale washed ashore dead in New Jersey on Monday, raising the total to nine that have been found dead off the coasts of New Jersey and New York since early December.
There are concerns the rising number of deaths are connected to offshore wind turbine farms, with the noise of operation and construction and the increase in water traffic adversly affecting the whales. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency has said that "there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales."
The whale found Monday was off Manasquan Beach in northern New Jersey and taken Tuesday to a Monmouth County facility for a necropsy. In a Facebook post Wednesday, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said its necropsy team and one from the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society determined the whale, a 35-foot female first seen feeding in the area Jan. 7, had no obvious signs of external trauma.
"However, the internal examination showed evidence of vessel strike," the post said. "The results of the tissue analysis will help us determine if the vessel strike occurred before or after death."
Clean Ocean Action, a New Jersey environmentalist group, said in a Facebook post Monday it is alarmed by the mounting number of whale deaths, calling them "unprecedented" in the past 50 years.
"The only unique factor from previous years remains to be the excessive scope, scale, and magnitude of offshore wind powerplant activity in the region," the group wrote.
In late January, 12 mayors from New Jersey coastal cities wrote a letter to the state's congressional delegation calling for a moratorium on all offshore wind activity until investigations are held by federal and state agencies.
"The unprecedented number of whale strandings coincides with ongoing activity from acoustic survey vessels for the development of offshore wind," the mayors wrote. "While we are not opposed to clean energy, we are concerned about the impacts these projects may already be having on our environment."
NOAA Fisheries said it has been monitoring an unusual mortality event for humpback whales since January 2016. Lauren Gaches, public affairs director for NOAA Fisheries, said in a press briefing Jan. 18 on East Coast whale deaths that "no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities."
She said several other factors might be involved.
"As the humpback whale population has grown, their occurrence in the Mid-Atlantic has increased. These whales may be following their prey, which we're hearing from our partners in the region are reportedly close to shore this winter," she said. "More whales in the water and traveled areas by boats of all sizes increases the risk of vessel strikes."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.