USA - More whales are dying. Conspiracies are leading to threats against the rescue teams
The National Marine Fisheries Service has been monitoring a spike in whale strandings along the entire East Coast
For the past seven years, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service has been monitoring a spike in whale strandings along the entire East Coast.
The agency has declared the ongoing situation an “unusual mortality event,” or UME, for humpback whales. More than 200 humpback strandings have been reported since 2016 along the eastern seaboard, from Maine to Florida.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries Department says it has conducted partial or full necropsy examinations on about half the whales, with 40 per cent of those examinations showing evidence of human interaction, such as entanglement or ship strikes.
But theories about offshore wind energy projects contributing to the deaths have risen alongside the strandings, despite the NOAA rejecting those claims.
“To date, no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities,” said Lauren Gaches, director of public affairs for NOAA Fisheries, during a media teleconference earlier this year.
“There are no known connections between any of this offshore wind activity and any whale stranding regardless of species,” added Benjamin Laws, deputy chief for the permits and conservation division at NOAA Fisheries.
Despite these reassurances, the evidence for what is causing the strandings is limited. There are challenges associated with examining whales, which can be reported floating far offshore or already in an advanced state of decomposition.
Conducting necropsies often requires the use of heavy equipment, like front loaders and backhoes, and the location of the whales can make that difficult.
“Sometimes it’s very remote on a barrier island, for instance, sometimes it’s on a protected area where there’s nesting seabirds. And so our ability to actually access them and do a full examination can be really Limited,” said Sarah Wilkin, national stranding and emergency response coordinator with NOAA Fisheries.
Wilkin added that, generally, the state of decomposition is a major factor in preventing scientists from determining a definitive cause of death.
“That can be frustrating. We want to know the answers and our partners in the Stranding Network want to know the answers. We want to do these examinations to try and understand what impacts are happening on whales and other marine mammals in the ocean so that we can inform management, so that we can make changes to human activities that can reduce the injuries and deaths that could be being caused by our activities — but it just isn’t possible in many cases.”
While scientists do know that human interaction is a contributing factor in whale strandings, it hasn’t stopped special interest groups and politicians from joining efforts to lay the blame on wind energy products.
“The windmills are driving them crazy,” former U.S. President Donald Trump said at a rally in South Carolina earlier this week. “They’re driving the whales a little batty and now they’re washing up on your shores in numbers never seen before.”
Trump’s comments were in response to an NOAA proposal calling for seasonal speed restrictions for boaters along the East Coast in an effort to reduce vessels striking endangered North Atlantic right whales.
“The Biden administration is right now trying to bludgeon the boating and maritime industry,” said Trump.
Non-profits caught in the crosshairs
On the East Coast, one New Jersey-based non-profit organization has borne the brunt of the wind energy concerns.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC) oversees nearly 3,000 kilometres of coastline and tidal waterways from Maine to Florida. The organization says it has responded to over 6,000 animals since it opened in 1978, ranging from sea turtles to bottlenose dolphins to large whales.
