This week, a dead whale washed up on the Jersey Shore for the seventh time in a little over a month. This has sparked a discussion about how activities that happen far from shore affect marine life.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC) confirmed Friday that the 20-foot-long humpback whale was found on a beach in Brigantine on Thursday afternoon.
“Due to the incoming tide and low light last night, staff returned at daybreak this morning to take photos,” the update read. “Plans are underway for a necropsy to be performed on the animal.”
The whale was found on Thursday, just a few miles from where another dead whale was found in Atlantic City on January 7. On December 23, a 30-foot-long female humpback whale washed up in the area.
7th dead whale washes up on Jersey Shore which has many people concerned 🙏😔 pic.twitter.com/4qSGiTNiEF
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) January 15, 2023
Also, on December 5, a 12-foot sperm whale washed up in Keansburg. On December 10, a young humpback whale washed up in Strathmere.
A humpback whale was found on December 6 in Amagansett, New York, and a female sperm whale was found on December 12 in Rockaway Beach, Queens.
In its most recent post, the MMSC said it could take months to figure out what killed the Brigantine whale and warned people not to go near the area because it is dangerous.
In the past few weeks, there have been a lot of sad whale deaths along the coasts of New York and New Jersey. This has made people in the area worry about the dangers that off-shore wind development poses to marine life.
“This is bad news on top of bad news,” Cindy Zipf, the head of the non-profit Clean Ocean Action in Long Branch, told NJ Advance Media about the discovery of the Brigantine whale.
Have a look at:
- At Least 68 People Were Killed in Nepal’s Worst Airplane Crash in 30 Years
- How Did Ahmaad Galloway, Former Alabama Running Back Die?
“This is devastating and shows even more urgency to our call to action for [President] Biden and Gov. Phil Murphy to call for a stop to all activity,” she continued. “Don’t add any more projects and get a comprehensive investigation underway with experts and full transparency with oversight.”
Zipf’s calls for an investigation were echoed by state Senator Vince Polistina, who said in a statement that “we should suspect all work related to off-shore development until we can determine the cause of death of these whales.” NJ Advance Media said that New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew agreed with what Polistina said.
Even though there aren’t any offshore wind turbines in New Jersey right now, there are several projects in the works. This is because Gov. Murphy is pushing the state to reach an offshore electric wind generation goal of 11,000 megawatts by 2040.
Dead whales keep washing up on Jersey shore. Opponents of offshore wind farms are calling for investigation https://t.co/hiOgKbAjxz
— R. J. Montes (@rjmontesLC) January 14, 2023
During an interview on the radio on Wednesday, Murphy called the deaths of the whales “tragic” and said that an investigation would be done to find out what caused them. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that the agency was looking into what happened on the Brigantine.
The NOAA is taking part in a study of why there have been more reports of humpback whale deaths along the East Coast in recent years. Since 2016, 174 dead humpback whales have been found in 13 different states.
The agency said that only about 87 were autopsied, and of those, 40% were found to have died from ship strikes or getting caught… Follow us only on Lee Daily for more news like this.
