Via David Wojick
The recent deaths of seven whales off the coast of New Jersey, mostly humpbacks, have attracted a lot of attention. The federal NOAA Fisheries Agency is responsible for whales. A derogatory statement by their spokesperson prompted me to do some research into humpback whale deaths.
The results were horrible. The evidence seems clear that offshore wind developments are killing hundreds of whales.
Here is the statement as reported in the press:
“NOAA says it has been studying what it calls “unusual death events” involving 174 humpback whales along the East Coast since January 2016. That period of time precedes offshore wind preparations in the area, said Lauren Gaches. Gaches is the press director of NOAA Fishery.
The data on “unusual mortality” is astounding. Essentially, the mortality rate from humpbacks nearly tripled starting in 2016 and remained high thereafter. You can see it here:
But the claim that this spike in mortality precedes offshore wind preparations is completely false. In fact, it coincided with the large-scale initiation of these activities. This strong correlation is strong evidence of causality, especially when no other possible causes are present.
For starters, overseas rental sales actually surged in 2015-2016, with nine major sales in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Massachusetts. These acquisitions must have generated a lot of activity, potentially including potentially harmful sonar.
In fact, 2016 also saw the beginning of the so-called geotechnical and geological feature survey. These surveys are actually licensed by NOAA Fishery, under what’s known as the Incidental Harassment Authorization, or IHA.
There is some seriously misleading jargon here. The IHA is incidental to a number of other activities, in this case offshore wind development. They are not random for whales. In fact, the term “harassment” specifically includes injuring a whale. That’s called “Level A harassment”.
To date, NOAA has issued an astounding 46 IHAs a year for offshore wind sites. The site’s features often include prolonged use of what I call a “sonar machine gun”. The instrument on board this ship emits extremely loud noises several times a second, often lasting for hours at a time, as the ship slowly maps the seafloor.
Mapping often takes days to complete. A blaster can log hundreds of miles surveying a 10-by-10-mile site. Each IHA usually lasts an entire year.
Here is a list of IHAs issued so far and those who have signed up:
There are many ways this sonar explosion can kill whales. Simply running away from the incredible noise can cause collisions with ships or entanglement of fishing gear, the two leading causes of whale deaths. Some whales may be deaf, increasing their chances of being hit by a ship later on. Direct bleeding trauma, such as a damaged ear, is another known risk that can lead to death from infection. So there can be a big time difference between explosion and death.
Note also that these deaths are not necessarily in the immediate vicinity of the sonar explosion, so spatial correlation is unlikely. Humpbacks in particular are extraordinary travelers. One group was tracked to travel 3,000 miles in just 28 days, averaging more than 100 miles a day. Another group regularly migrates 5,000 miles. Both are winter-summer migrations that can occur twice a year.
Thus, a sonar explosion, a site feature in one place, can easily lead to the death of many whales hundreds of miles away. If one of these generators suddenly explodes near a school of whales, they can run in different directions, then slowly die off.
The problem is that the 2016 spike in annual humpback deaths coincided with the spike in the NOAA Incidental Harassment Authorization. It’s that simple and NOAA Fishery certainly knows this.
This isn’t just about humpbacks either. Some of the whales that died off the coast of New Jersey were endangered sperm whales. And of course, there are the critically endangered North Atlantic Whales, which are on the verge of extinction.
Worse still, the IHA is about to make a much bigger jump. There are eleven pending IHA applications and eight of these are for actually building 8 different monster wind “farms”.
Driving hundreds of large monoplanes holding turbine towers and propellers would be much louder than the sonic blasters approved to date, especially with eight sites operating at the same time. These construction sites range from Virginia to Massachusetts, with concentrations in New Jersey and New York.
For more on this noise, see https://www.cfact.org/2022/07/26/threat-to-endangered-whales-gets-louder/
We clearly need a moratorium on new Random Harassment Permits until the safety of whales and other marine species can be assured. Hundreds of whales may have been killed by offshore wind activity. The proof is right there.
Author
David Wojick Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For the origin see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For more than 100 previous articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consultation.
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