On Tuesday, the eighth whale since December 5 washed up on the New York/New Jersey shoreline. While officially the cause of the whale deaths is not yet known, many conservationists believe that a massive offshore wind project may be a contributing factor to the deaths of the humpback whales.
Greenpeace, an environmental organization who largely made their name and reputation by standing up to commercial whaling vessels, has been oddly silent about the whale deaths. The organization’s main fight now seems to be tackling the specious claim that fossil fuel emissions are leading to out-of-control global warming, which some scientists believe is leading to all kinds of chaotic weather, from hurricanes to extreme cold.
On Fox News, one of Greenpeace’s original founders, Patrick Moore, claimed that the group’s silence on the dead whales is a betrayal of the organization’s mission.
“I think they’ve betrayed their founders,” Moore told Fox’s Jesse Watters.
“The disturbance on the bottom of the sea just installing these things is massive,” Moore said. “They’re 60-foot wide concrete, 40 feet into the bottom. They have to dig deep holes to do this. It’s just a tragedy.”
Some local officials have called for a pause in wind farm construction until a definitive cause for the whale deaths can be pinned down.
“Obviously, I became concerned because I know that there is construction taking place out in the ocean, and I think that when you have so many of these large animals that wash up on shore dead, that we now have to take a pause and investigate, why is that happening?” said Nassau County, New York, executive Bruce Blakeman.
Among the theories involving the wind farms and whale deaths is that the sonar-based surveys involved with placing the giant wind turbines may be interfering with the whales’ sonar and disorienting the creatures.
“I can’t authoritatively say that all the whales that are washing up are because of offshore wind farms. But what I can tell you is that the seven whales that washed up off New Jersey in the past month have all washed up during intense geotechnical surveying of wind farm leases off of New Jersey,” said Meghan Lapp, a commercial fishing expert with Seafreeze.
“On the East Coast, there has been an unusual mortality event for humpback whales from 2016 until now. The only thing that has changed in the ocean in that time is the fact there have been offshore wind surveys occurring from 2015 until now,” Lapp added.
She reiterated: “The only thing that changed in the ocean is the surveying activities that have been going on for offshore wind farms which are essentially carpet bombing the ocean floor with intense sound.”
Anyone who has seen Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is aware that whales, particularly the humpback variety, use sonar to navigate the oceans and communicate with each other. Is the “carpet bombing” strategy described by Lapp causing whales to lose their way in the ocean?
A spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Allison Ferreira, claimed that the most recent whale death was likely caused by a collision with an oceangoing vessel.
“Preliminary findings indicate that a vessel strike is the likely cause of death. However, we will know more once the results of the samples become available. The animal was found to be in good body condition and presented evidence that it had been actively eating,” Ferreira said in a statement.
“Good body condition” except for being found dead on the shore, apparently.
While Greenpeace appears to sitting this whale controversy out, other groups are calling for a halt to wind farm production.
“Marine mammals (whales, porpoise, seals) are sensitive to underwater sound and are extremely vulnerable to harm during offshore wind [farm] construction. Damage to their hearing kills their ability to navigate and communicate permanently,” stated Protect Our Coast NJ.
“We have an unprecedented amount of whales dying here at the same time there is this industrial activity taking place on a scale that has never before happened in these waters,” Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, echoed. “Why is this not being investigated? Why are these companies getting a pass?”
Meanwhile, clean-energy zealots are closing ranks and claiming that there’s no evidence that the whale deaths are connected with the gigantic wind project.
“There has been a lot of speculation about whether these whale deaths are linked to wind energy development, but at this point, we have no evidence that would attribute any whale mortalities to offshore wind activities, such as sonar or seismic work,” claimed the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society in a Facebook post.
A group of New Jersey mayors has called for an “immediate moratorium” on all offshore wind development until the public can be assured that the offshore wind projects can be deemed safe to the environment.
“While we are not opposed to clean energy, we are concerned about the impacts these [offshore wind] projects may already be having on our environment,” the 12 mayors wrote in a joint letter to Washington officials.
