November 17, 2023
New Jersey, Wildlife

Evidence that offshore wind energy vessel surveys are the cause of the recent New Jersey whale and dolphin deaths

Save LBI

The evidence that offshore wind energy vessel surveys are the cause of the recent New Jersey whale and dolphin deaths consists of the following elements, listed below and then each presented in detail in the original document.

  1. There have been recent unprecedented spikes in whale deaths
  2. The deaths began when the number of vessel surveys increased.
  3. The time and place of the whale deaths coincides with survey vessel presence.
  4. The use of an unsupported low noise source level and a high transmission loss factor underestimates the elevated noise range from the vessel and the number of animals affected.
  5. The primary impact on those animals, i.e., “disturbance” of their behavior which can lead to serious harm and fatality, is not addressed in survey approvals, nor is the cumulative impact of multiple vessels operating in the same area.
  6. There have been many whale stranding events worldwide associated with noise devices with similar horizontally directed and more impacting noise patterns, and
  7. No other plausible cause of the deaths has been put forward.

Download original document: “The evidence that offshore wind energy vessel surveys are the cause of the recent New Jersey whale and dolphin deaths [1]”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/evidence-that-offshore-wind-energy-vessel-surveys-are-the-cause-of-the-recent-new-jersey-whale-and-dolphin-deaths/

URLs in this post:

[1] The evidence that offshore wind energy vessel surveys are the cause of the recent New Jersey whale and dolphin deaths: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Evidence-wind-whale-deaths.pdf