June 8, 2024 — More than 500 whales were stranded on the East Coast between 1995 and 2022. Many of those were discovered in our region.
WSHU’s Sabrina Garone spoke with Dr. Lesley Thorne of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Thorne led a study that looked into the possible explanations.
WSHU: Of those hundreds of strandings, most of those happened between 2016 and 2022. Your study took a look at some of the reasons for this. Could you take me through the major findings?
LT: We looked at patterns of large whale strandings relative to that of different threats to large whales. And we focused on humpback whales, which are the species that strand most frequently on the East Coast. Vessel strikes, where whales are struck and hurt by vessels, and entanglement in fishing gear are major threats that face whales globally. So, we looked at patterns of vessel traffic and fishing efforts.
And we also looked at activities occurring along the U.S. East Coast associated with offshore wind development. And what we found was that mortalities and serious injuries due to vessel strikes increased threefold during this time period post-2016. We did not find any evidence that offshore wind development, or site assessment surveys for offshore wind development, played a role in the increase in whale strandings. In short, our analysis suggested that vessel strikes were an important driver, and that vessel strikes were exacerbated by increases in traffic in key regions. As well as key changes in humpback whale habitat use and distribution.