Whale deaths part of ‘unknown mortality event’

and conservation division, said, “We do not believe that the evidence supports that those planned construction activities would exacerbate or compound these ongoing mortality events.”

The organization is attributing the whale deaths to an unknown mortality event, described as “a stranding event that is unexpected, involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population, and demands immediate response.”

One potential cause of increased strandings could be the rise in whale populations. The United States declared humpback whales to be an endangered species in 1970, under the Endangered Species Conservation Act. But since then, the humpback whale population has grown from 15,000 to nearly 85,000, NOAA stated on its website.

Richard Schurin, one of the leaders of the Island Park Equinor Windmill Committee, expressed his opinion about the project and what he sees as its connection to the mortality event. “It’s kind of undeniable, at this point, and my understanding is that sonar activities, sonar work was going was taking place off of New Jersey, coastal south of us. And these whales, they go back and forth. I’m not surprised that they’re impacted by this,” Schurin said.

A spokesperson for broad energy company Equinor said experienced offshore wind companies do more than any other industry to track and monitor the marine environment. Equinor is in the middle stages of its approved $3 billion project, Empire Wind 1 and 2. As part of the project, 147 wind turbines, 886 feet high, will be built 15 to 30 miles offshore of Island Park and Long Beach.

“For example, Equinor deploys sophisticated passive acoustic monitoring buoys in the vicinity of our operations off the coast of New York to collect real-time whale tracking data in partnership with scien- tists at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to detect the presence of marine mammals,” the company stated in an email.

In Maryland, after whales continued to wash up on beaches, politicians including Rep. Andy Harris called for a moratorium on wind farm construction until it could be definitively proven offshore wind is not the cause of repeated whale deaths.

On Jan. 31, a group of New Jersey may- ors called for an immediate moratorium on offshore wind development. The Detroit Free Press reported that this request was based on the discovery of Luna on Lido Beach.

“While we are not opposed to clean energy, we are concerned about the impacts these (offshore wind) projects may already be having on our environment,” the 12 mayors wrote in a letter to federal officials.