Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Marine Mammal Commission, and the NOAA that preparation for building the turbines, including sonar mapping activities, is not to blame for whale deaths.Ītlantic Shores holds one lease to build a wind farm off Atlantic City whose turbines that will be visible, at least on the clearest of days, from the lease area, 183,000 acres between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light. The wind companies have pushed back, citing conclusions by the U.S. It’s very, very personal.” ‘A very local phenomenon’ Literally my son just said to me, the whales better stop dying because it’s consuming my life and (that of) many others. “I’ve been basically so consumed on trying to learn more and raise awareness. “I’m holding back the tears because that question made me cry,” she said in an interview. She became emotional when asked how the effort was affecting her. About 40% bear evidence of being struck by a vessel or entangled in fishing gear, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Marine Fisheries Service, which designated the time period as an unusual mortality event predating offshore wind-energy activity.įor Tricia DeVoe, an Ocean County, New Jersey, resident who works for a whale watching company in the summer who posted the photo of the whale they call Windy, that marine mammal death was just the latest in a string of gut-wrenching strandings that are, frankly, taking over her life. “How long before we start seeing dead children washing up on the beach?”Īt least 178 humpback whales have died from Maine to Florida since 2016, with necropsies completed on half. like everything you said I was a whale in the water experiencing it,” said one poster. Posters reflected personally on every whale death. On Facebook, Brett Whiting, offshore operations director at JECS Global Offshore Wind, said, “I’ve been called a little bugger in my time, but this is the first time I’ve been named and shamed in a conspiracy involving a United States governor and a leading global energy supplier!” ‘Consuming my life’ “Conflating two companies with similar names is another amateur scare tactic being used by groups whose sole focus is to stall the progress of New Jersey’s clean energy future.” and JECS Offshore Services, and any claim otherwise is absolutely false,” said Alexandra Altman, Murphy’s deputy communications director, in an email. “There is no connection between JECS Ltd. “Phil has no interest in stopping the project because he’s set to make $$$$, always follow the money,” wrote one poster. (JECS are the first initials of his children’s names.) One frequent Facebook poster argued, falsely, that Murphy had a share in a company involved with wind energy called JECS Offshore, a name similar to one that he formed to buy his property in Italy. They quoted the Book of Jonah and pondered whether to march on Trenton, into packed local municipal meetings. Phil Murphy a frequent target of derision. “When do we March?” asked one poster, whose Facebook bio is “SURVIVOR, RESPECTFUL, DEDICATED, PERSISTENT, PATRIOT.” “I’m so mad I could spit.”Įlection conspiracy theories soon followed, with New Jersey Democratic Gov. The debate has split, perhaps predictably, along political lines, frustrating those who say they really are just worried about the whales, and those who have other concerns about the full impact of wind turbines. It is a connection scientists and government agencies have dismissed.Įven as necropsies find evidence of ship strikes in nearly half of the whales, which have been dying in elevated numbers since 2016, the drumbeat of scapegoating wind energy has intensified. Many traced the whale’s death, and that of nearly two dozen others along the coast of New York and New Jersey since early December 2022, to work being done in advance of several large-scale wind turbine farms off the Jersey coast. The caption ended with five emojis: prayer hands, crying face, whale, blue heart, another prayer hands.īefore long, it had been shared 1.7K times, with 420 comments. “Her gravesite is dug - this will be her final resting place.” “Windy was a young humpback whale taken in the prime of her life,” read the caption on a March 3 post in the Facebook group Protect our Coast NJ showing the diseased humpback whale on the beach near Seaside Park. 7, 2023, was rolled up toward the dunes and buried the next day after a necropsy. A juvenile humpback whale that washed ashore on the Atlantic City beach on Jan.
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