Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: ‘Alarming & unprecedented’ — Why did whale wash up on Manasquan, NJ beach?

February 15, 2023 — A whale floating in the ocean off Manasquan Inlet Monday washed ashore late in the afternoon and reignited the debate over why it’s happening and whether or not work related to wind turbines is to blame.

Necropsy teams from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center and Atlantic Marine Conservation Society were on Manasquan Beach Tuesday morning. They identified the whale as a 35-foot juvenile female that was first seen along the Jersey Shore on Jan. 7, according to NOAA Fisheries.

The whale is being moved to the Monmouth County landfill in Tinton Falls where the whale will be examined, tissue samples taken and a necropsy will be performed.

Read the full article at New Jersey 101.5

The offshore wind and whales public relations duel

February 14, 2023 — This winter’s grim series of dead whales on East Coast beaches brought on a simmering public relations battle, as opponents and supporters of offshore wind energy projects work to shape the debate.

Stranded whales on New York and New Jersey beaches in December and January brought out the Clean Ocean Action environmental group and allies from beach towns and commercial fishermen who have been fighting for years against offshore wind development in the New York Bight.

They demanded that all work be suspended on offshore projects while the whale deaths are investigated. The calls grew louder in recent days, with another humpback whale and a highly endangered North Atlantic right whale found in Virginia.

Yet another whale washed up at Manasquan, N.J. Monday afternoon. One witness was Mayor Paul Kanitra from neighboring Point Pleasant Beach, who was one of a dozen Jersey Shore mayors who signed a recent letter to federal officials demanding a moratorium on offshore wind work pending an investigation of the whale deaths.

“It’s the size of a bus and it could easily come ashore in Point Pleasant Beach,” Kanitra wrote in a Facebook post, addressing New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “I guarantee you if it does we will personally test it and get to the bottom of this. Governor, when do these stop becoming coincidences? How many more will it take?”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Wind energy gets scrutiny following whale deaths

February 10, 2023 — Politicians, citizens and some environmentalists are calling for a slow-down or complete halt of wind energy activity off the East Coast as officials examine the cause of a rash of marine animal deaths, but neither action nor an answer appears to be imminent.

In January, the debate landed on the shores of Worcester County with the body of a humpback whale, which immediately led to speculation regarding the cause of its death.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is examining samples taken from the whale, but representative Allison Ferreira said that it will take “weeks to months” to receive the necropsy report.

“Given that necropsy reports provide a comprehensive account of the stranding event, ranging from a description of external observations and internal examination findings to the diagnostic results of samples taken, they can take several weeks to months to complete and finalize,” Ferreira said in an email.

A few days later, Ferreira added that preliminary findings from the necropsy indicate vessel strike as the cause of death.

“But we do not know (definitively) if it was struck before or after death,” she said. “Results from samples taken from the whale may help inform this, but we may never know.”

Read the full article at Ocean City Today

What we know — and don’t know — about offshore wind and whale deaths

February 9, 2023 — Offshore wind development in US East Coast waters has been blamed for a flurry of dead humpback whales off New Jersey and New York. But what do — and don’t — we know?

Since 2016 there has been an unusually high incidence of humpback whale deaths on the US East Coast: a total of 180 animals, of which about 40 percent had evidence of entanglement in fishing gear or being struck by vessels. The US National Marine Fisheries Service works with other organizations to examine dead whales found at sea or beached to determine the cause of death. The other cases remain undiagnosed because of decomposition, the inability to tow the whale ashore, lack of access to the whale, or an indeterminate cause.

Investigations of large whale mortalities can take many months, but NMFS has stated that the recent mortalities show no relation to offshore wind development. So what are the potential risks for whales of offshore wind development?

Marine mammals are sensitive to noise, which can result from weather events, earthquakes, and human sources, such as sonar, bottom drilling and coring, seismic air guns, and explosions. The effects can range from behavioral change to temporary or permanent hearing loss, and occasionally mortality. Most deaths related to acoustic exposure have been in toothed whales and dolphins related to sonar. There has been no recent evidence of humpback or other baleen whales dying from noise exposure.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Whale deaths no match for pursuit of East Coast offshore wind farms

January 30, 2023 — A spate of whales washing up along East Coast beaches has exposed a deep rift in the environmental movement between conservationists seeking to stop the construction of massive offshore wind farms and advocates who say renewable energy projects will save the planet from climate change.

A group of environmentalists is calling on New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to halt work on ocean wind projects after a sudden increase in whale strandings on the region’s seashores.

In a little more than a month, seven dead whales, most of them humpbacks, have washed up on New Jersey and New York beaches. That is a record in a region that typically has a similar number of beached whales in an entire year.

Read the full article at The Washington Times

Dead whales and tough economics bedevil Biden’s massive wind energy push

January 26, 2023 — The school-bus-size humpback whale that washed ashore on a narrow beach in Brigantine, N.J., this month weighed in at 12 tons and took a heavy emotional toll on coastal towns helplessly witnessing a spate of such deaths.

The humpback was one of nine large whales to get stranded over six weeks on or near beaches in the Northeast, not far from where developers of hundreds of offshore wind turbines are engaged in a flurry of preconstruction activity. The deaths have prompted pushback against the projects even though government scientists say they are unrelated.

It’s the latest in a string of threats to a fledgling offshore wind industry that climate advocates say is central to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Surging costs from inflation and labor shortages have developers saying their projects may not be profitable. A raft of lawsuits and pending federal restrictions to protect sensitive wildlife could further add to costs. The uncertainty has clouded bright expectations for massive growth in U.S. offshore wind, which the Biden administration and several state governments have bet big on in their climate plans.

Read the full article at The Washington Post

Whales navigate a perilous route off the NJ Shore

January 23, 2023 — At any given time, 50 or more vessels, ranging from massive cargo ships to small fishing boats, are motoring off New Jersey’s 127-mile coast from New York to Delaware.

The smaller vessels often travel at just a few knots per hour, while larger ones run to 20 knots (23 mph) or more.

Little wonder whales sometimes crash into one of them, receiving what amounts to giant-sized headaches or fatal blows.

Two whales that died in January and were stranded in Atlantic City and Brigantine showed evidence of blunt force trauma associated with vessel collisions. Opponents of  have suggested survey vessels are to blame, but officials suggest otherwise.

Walt Nadolny, a professor emeritus at SUNY Maritime College in New York, has been teaching students for two decades how to avoid whale strikes before they head to sea as merchant mariners.

“The odds are ridiculously low” that the whales struck a slow-going survey vessel, said Nadolny, who has no affiliation with an offshore wind company.

Orsted, a global offshore wind company that started in Denmark, is set to build New Jersey’s first wind farm but has not started construction. In January, it has had one vessel at a time on the water totaling little more than seven days.

Nadonly surmises that it’s highly unlikely an offshore wind surveying vessel, which normally would travel at 8 to 10 knots (9-11 mph), could cause a fatal blow to a whale. Rather, he said, fatal collisions typically occur with bigger ships traveling at least 18 knots (21 mph) or more. Usually only large commercial ships travel that fast.

For example, on Friday morning the Maersk Pittsburgh container ship with a gross tonnage of 74,642 was traveling off the coast of Long Beach Island from New York City to Charleston at almost 21 knots (24 mph), according to tracking provided on marinetraffic.com. Multiple other container ships were traveling at similar speeds.

Many of those fast ships, Nadolny noted, often come from, or are headed to, the busy ports of New York/New Jersey or the Delaware Bay toward Philadelphia. The ships are required to reduce speed only as they near the ports, but they often follow voluntary speed restrictions farther out.

Read the full article at phys.org

Feds research whale mystery after more than a dozen dead whales wash up along East Coast

January 20, 2023 — Fourteen whales have washed up on Atlantic Coast beaches since Dec. 1, but marine mammal experts and some conservation groups urge caution before jumping to conclusions about why these animals and others died.

In total, at least 20 marine mammals from five species — including humpbacks, pilot whales and an orca — have been found dead on beaches from Maine to Florida since Nov. 28.

The deaths have prompted concerns as photos and stories of the whales and marine mammal rescue teams circulate online. On Wednesday, federal officials held a conference call with reporters to try to address swirling questions and rumors.

Read the full article at USA TODAY

NEW JERSEY: Here’s what federal scientists say is likely killing whales off the NJ coast

January 19, 2023 — Seven whale deaths along the coasts of New Jersey and New York in as many weeks have marine scientists seeking answers and federal authorities making assurances that offshore wind development is not to blame.

On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, held a phone conference with journalists across the country to address what the agency called an ongoing “unusual mortality event” among humpback whales.

Since early December, four dead humpback whales and one sperm whale have washed ashore New Jersey beaches. Another two whales washed up dead on Long Island beaches.

Read the full article at the Asbury Park Press.