UK Govt rejects request to share whale stranding data, fuelling suspicions over offshore wind farms 

While recent statistics from other countries are in the public domain, the UK’s delay in publishing data has increased speculation that the government might be hiding another sharp increase in cetacean strandings, and it’s fuelling further suspicions of a link between wind farms and the demise of marine life.

Five-fold increase in UK cetacean strandings

The 2018 tally of 1000+ cetaceans stranded on UK beaches, compares with an annual reported average of around 200 or less over a period of 106 years, since records began.

That’s more than a five-fold increase.

What changed? Could it be the rapid increase in offshore wind farms?

I’ve long suggested that it’s more than a coincidence. Cetaceans rely on highly sensitive echolocation, or biosonar, systems for navigation and to find food. Noise emanating from wind farms, especially during surveys and construction, can disorientate marine mammals and lead them to strand.

We know that there are many other sources of artificial noise in our oceans, but when there is such a steep rise in cetacean deaths we have a duty to look for the cause, even if that means examining the role of the ‘untouchable’ wind industry.

Where’s the data? Defra say we will see it “eventually”

It would of course be useful to see the UK data compiled since 2018, but for the past few years the statistics have been hidden from public view, raising eyebrows – and questions. but still the authorities are in no hurry to share the information.

With vast funds invested in the renewables industry, and promises made for further expansion, there’s little willingness from the UK government to publicly acknowledge any detrimental environmental effects from wind farms, so when I asked Defra for the latest data on whale deaths around our coasts, it was perhaps not surprising that they declined to tell me, even through a Freedom of Information request.

They said it would be published “eventually”.

There was no mention of exactly when that might be.

Freedom of Information request: denied

While Defra has confirmed that they do hold the information, they won’t share it for now; they told me that “it would not be in the public interest to do so at this time”.

They explained that it’s still in the course of completion but added, “We understand that the disclosure of such information aids transparency […] within Government and furthers public understanding of the issue,” but they went on to say “however, there is a stronger public interest in withholding the information because the intention is to publish the information you have requested in future”. And when will that be? Well, Defra told me “The information requested is still in the process of being finalised and quality assured before it will eventually be published.”

So it will be published ‘eventually’.

Hmm. Okay.

The information “is being withheld under the exception at regulation 12(4)(d) of the EIRs (Environmental Information Regulations) […] the exception is engaged in this instance as the information is in the course of completion and will be made publicly available.”

Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme – annual reports

With Defra not playing ball, I contacted the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, CSIP, an organisation that forms part of the Zoological Society of London. The CSIP receives funding from Defra to complete a yearly report for them, in which they are contracted to collate the statistics of cetacean strandings and submit the data to Defra annually. This data has, in past years, made it into the public domain – at least until the figures began to rise alarmingly, in line with offshore wind farm expansion.

So I asked the CSIP if they might share the latest data with me. They politely asked the reason behind my request, which I explained – but at the time of writing I have heard nothing further from them. They did however tell me they would have to seek permission from Defra anyway before revealing the figures – so it was looking like a closed circle whichever route I tried.

Defra and CSIP acknowledge there’s an issue

Defra and the CSIP have acknowledged problems with manmade sounds affecting cetaceans, including noise from offshore wind projects.

Giving evidence to a meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee during a Marine Mammals enquiry in Oct 2022, the CSIP said, “there is no doubt that sound disturbance can be a significant issue for some species. For example, harbour porpoises in the North Sea are impacted by pile driving for installation of wind farms.”

At a later meeting of the same committee, in January of this year, Defra’s own minister responsible for marine affairs suggested that “There are certain activities that you can co‑locate with a wind farm and they can be places where cetaceans and marine mammals thrive.”

The minister went on to describe the little discussed problem of undersea cabling associated with offshore wind, “It is not just where the wind farm is; it is the cabling. If you look at a map of cabling off the east coast of England, it is like a cat’s cradle of existing cables and that is all going to get more complex. We want to make sure that we are managing this properly.”

Two points to note here:-

1. Should we even be constructing wind farms in “places where cetaceans thrive”? I don’t think so.

2. We know that electromagnetic fields from undersea cabling have been linked to unusual behavioural changes in some marine species, and more research is needed in this area – preferably before the ‘cat’s cradle’ of cables gets even more ‘complex’.

Data from other regions

Scotland has it’s own stranding reporting system, (the Scottish Marine Animals Stranding Scheme), separate from that for the rest of England and Wales. The most recent set of data published by SMASS was in 2020, but even though SMASS hasn’t publicly published an annual summary since then, we do know that 2023 has seen worrying incidents of cetacean mortality in Scotland, potentially linked with the wind industry, one of which was a mass stranding event that reportedly coincided with seabed surveys for a wind farm off the Isle of Lewis in July, and resulted in the deaths of more than 50 Pilot whales.

In Ireland, up-to-date statistics are openly available to the public, via a website managed by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. So far during 2023 there were nearly 300 cetaceans washed up along their beaches, many of them along the coastline bordering the Irish Sea, a body of water with a highly developed offshore wind industry.

So why is Defra withholding the data?

Until we can see the figures, we can only speculate if and why the UK government might be reluctant to share the data. Surely a decrease in whale deaths would be something to shout about. A further increase however…. that would be another story.

Of course the reasons for a surge in marine mammal mortality will be many and complex but we cannot ignore the role of offshore wind and we need an honest and open discussion about it, indeed this should have happened long ago – and the public should have access to recent data in order to further a meaningful debate.

European concerns

Meanwhile, several European countries appear to be very troubled about the impact of wind farms at sea, in spite of a continent-wide push to rapidly increase capacity. Representatives from some countries that signed up to the ASCOBANS treaty (that’s the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas) have voiced their serious concerns about the proliferation of offshore wind farms, particularly in the North Sea, a body of water already home to a large number of turbines.

There are suggestions that it will be difficult to assess the cumulative impact of multiple new wind farms and that it’s not clear what levels of underwater noise will be produced during the construction of foundations for what will likely be much larger turbines associated with new developments.

There is also a fear that construction of offshore wind farms is changing the habitat of cetaceans, for example through dredging and substrate introduction, the impacts of which are not well understood.

Little knowledge and frenzied development

For years I’ve been calling for a cautionary approach to offshore development until we establish what is killing our wildlife. We still have little knowledge of the impact that industrialisation of any kind has on marine environments. There should have been an independent investigation into the potentially catastrophic damage being caused to marine ecosystems – but instead we have witnessed frenzied development in our seas, with a scandalous lack of concern for the damage being done.

‘Saving the planet’ these days seems to come with scant regard for natural habitats and wildlife.

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that building a vast array of industrial turbines in a marine environment will not benefit the wildlife living there, any more than building a factory on a field will benefit the wildlife that lives in the field. Human impact in any natural environment is detrimental to nature – how many times are we going to try to disprove this fact?

Wind industry looking to onshore developments

Now, as offshore projects become less lucrative, the wind industry is eyeing up the British countryside for development. A recent government auction failed to secure bids for any new UK offshore projects, the industry saying that the price offered by the government did not reflect rising industry costs. But the government has at the same time eased restrictions for onshore developments. The wind companies are already complaining that the reforms don’t go far enough but nevertheless, for now at least, the attention has shifted from sea to land, and it looks like we will once again have to fight to protect our forests and mountains from reckless industrialisation in the name of ‘clean green’ energy.

The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, this could spell the end for the little that remains.

So, there we have it, the authorities dithering with the data, wind farms filling the seas, marine life washing up dead on our shores and plans to industrialise what’s left of our countryside. When will everyone wake up to what is happening in front of their very eyes? The UK government, in common with governments in many countries worldwide, seems hellbent on pushing ahead with more wind power, be it on land or at sea, ignoring the damage it is causing to the environment through badly planned development and weakened environmental considerations.

It might be too late for us here in the UK, so many wind farms are already up and running and the damage is done. Yet the Europe-wide plan is to vastly increase offshore wind capacity, leaving little hope for the survival of our marine wildlife. Intensifying industrialisation is not the answer to any of our problems. Let this serve as a warning to other countries.

To citizens of the world I ask:

Do you trust your government to put nature before money?

My advice: Don’t.

(((( o ))))

Update, January 29, 2024:

The UK’s department for the environment has doubled down on its decision to withhold whale deaths data, blaming covid and bird flu for the delay.

Dead Whales, Wind Farms and the Hidden Data …