How do three whales wash ashore in New Jersey and New York in four days, and no one thinks that this is newsworthy? Since December 2022 to present, 26 whales and 46 dolphin/porpoises have died off our coast and yet it rarely makes any news headlines.
On Friday, August 11th, a 35 foot humpback whale washed ashore at Smith Point County Park’s outer beach in Long Island. The following afternoon, a second dead whale was spotted and washed ashore on Takanassee Beach Saturday evening which the locals named the male juvenile whale, Saint Taka and held a memorial on Sunday evening after it was buried on the Long Branch beach. Again, on Monday, East Rockaway Inlet and had another dead whale!! No one has the total count for the porpoises and dolphins from New York. New Jersey’s count comes from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ.
What the public is not being told is that the ships that are currently mapping for wind turbines are using high-level focused pulses of sound through vast areas of the ocean floor to do the mapping. This noise can cause harm, injury or even death to thousands of whales and other sea mammals. These sea mammals rely on sound to navigate safely through the ocean and around boat traffic, so if they become temporarily deaf due to the noise, or if the juvenile becomes separated from its mother, of course they may be struck by a ship. If this is not a concern or possibility, why would all the offshore wind companies that are planning to build 3400 turbines in the ocean ask for harassment/take permits? Every day these surveying ships are out on the ocean creating havoc for these marine creatures.
During the month of July, Orsted requested an incidental harassment authorization (“IHA”) to “take” or “harass” 16 different endangered and protected marine mammal species for high-resolution geophysical (HRG) marine site characterization surveys for “Orsted’s Ocean Wind II” offshore wind project off NY/NJ. Then another request for a permit to harass 9,711 marine mammals by “LEVEL B” for marine site characterization surveys off New York & New Jersey for two offshore wind projects, “Vineyard Northeast” and “Vineyard Mid-Atlantic”. This incidental harassment authorization (“IHA”) to “take” or “harass” 19 different endangered and protected marine mammal species from Massachusetts to New Jersey for its Vineyard Northeast project. The third request, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight, LLC requested an incidental harassment authorization (“IHA”) to “take” or “harass” 15 different endangered and protected marine mammal species.
When the governor states there is no evidence that offshore wind development is the cause of death for the whales and dolphins, most people will disagree. Hopefully, this horror can be stopped when the people go to the polls to vote this November and remove all the legislatures in office who allowed this atrocity and give one billion of the ratepayers’ subsidies to go to this foreign company instead of the original plan to reimburse the ratepayers to offset the cost. But how can you put a dollar value on anyone or anything’s life?
