Dead Whale Washes Ashore In Manasquan, 9th This Winter In NJ

MANASQUAN, NJ — A dead whale washed up on the beach in Manasquan Monday, at Whiting Avenue beach, according to media reports and Clean Ocean Action, a Jersey Shore ocean advocacy group.

The group shared this photo, above, of the whale, taken by Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra.

This is only the latest whale to wash up dead in the New York and New Jersey region this winter. Since Dec. 5, nine dead whales have washed ashore in New Jersey, according to Clean Ocean Action.

"This alarming number of deaths is unprecedented in the last half century," said the group Monday.

And they continue to blame the unusual number of whale deaths on offshore wind development off the New Jersey coast, a project spearheaded by Gov. Phil Murphy. Under the leadership of Murphy and President Joe Biden, hundreds of miles of wind turbines are currently being built in the New York/New Jersey bight. Murphy has said he wants to build the largest offshore wind farm in the nation off New Jersey and New York City.

Feds Want To Bring Wind Farms To 480,000 More Acres Off NJ (Jan. 2022)

NJ's Offshore Wind Farms Grow To 9; Firms Bid $4B To Operate (March 2022)

Massive Offshore Wind Farms Coming To The Jersey Shore (Sept. 2021)

"The only unique factor from previous years, is the excessive scope, scale and magnitude of offshore wind powerplant activity in the region," said Clean Ocean Action Monday, after the ninth whale death.

Jersey Shore Congressman Chris Smith and South Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew, both Republicans, have called for Gov. Murphy to halt offshore wind development until it can be determined what is causing all the whale deaths so far this winter.

However, those in support of wind energy say it is premature to make a connection between dead whales washing ashore and wind turbine construction.

"A broad coalition of environmental organizations agree it’s important to discover why we’re seeing increased whale mortalities in New Jersey and surrounding areas; however, they believe that correlating it to wind turbine site exploration is unfounded and premature," said the Sierra Club in a statement in early January.

They also point out that humpback whales have increased in population off New Jersey, and are returning to the Atlantic Ocean off New York and New Jersey.

Sierra Club speculated that the increased whale deaths may be due to boat strikes, as their population numbers have increased.

"Research shows an increasing population of humpback whales off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. The increase in strandings could be a proportionate response to an increase in population, especially if we’re seeing more juveniles," said the Sierra Club. "The habitat use and surface foraging behavior of juvenile humpback whales may make them particularly vulnerable to vessel strikes in nearshore waters."

Also, NOAA said it has been studying what it calls “unusual mortality events” involving 174 humpback whales along the entire U.S. East Coast since January 2016 — which is several years before wind turbine construction started off New Jersey.

Last February, Gov. Murphy announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a wind auction for more than 480,000 acres offshore of New York and New Jersey, in the area known as the New York Bight.

This marked the first offshore wind lease sale under the President Joe Biden-Harris administration, which wants to advance wind energy in the U.S. The New York Bight is a large stretch of the Atlantic Ocean directly off New York City, and stretches from Cape May at its southernmost point to Montauk on Long Island at its northernmost.

The Feb. 23, 2022 auction will allow offshore wind developers to bid on six lease areas — the most areas ever offered in a single auction in the U.S. — as described in the federal government's Final Sale Notice.

Those wind turbines will be 27 nautical miles off the Jersey coast, and 20 nautical miles off New York. Here is a map that exactly shows where these proposed wind farms will be located: https://www.boem.gov/renewable...

This is in addition to construction that started last year on three additional wind farms, the first located 10 miles off the northern tip of Long Beach Island (Barnegat Light), and two more wind farms located 15 miles off Atlantic City.