Many legislators are worried that the increasing number of wind farms in the ocean is killing whales.
Off the southern coast of Virginia, miles from Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), one of two active wind farms in federal waters, a third dead whale has been found in less than a week.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed to Fox News Digital on Monday that a highly endangered North Atlantic right whale washed up near Chic’s Beach in Virginia Beach, Virginia over the weekend. Local media said that the whale showed no signs of entanglement and that an autopsy revealed no obvious cause of death.
A dead humpback whale was discovered on the beaches of Cape Charles, Virginia, just two days before the beached right whale was discovered, and another was discovered just five days earlier off the coast of First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach.
According to an email from NOAA spokesman Allison Ferreira to Fox News Digital, “there have been three huge whale strandings in Virginia over the past week, two humpbacks and most recently a North Atlantic right whale.” All of these occurrences are being looked at in conjunction with our stranded network partners at this time.
The first whale, a male measuring in at 36 feet, showed no evidence of recent entanglement or encounters with ships, according to Ferreira; the second whale, a female measuring in at 23 feet, was so badly decomposed that her injuries could not be assessed. The third whale is an Atlantic right whale male measuring 43 feet in length, and it is currently undergoing preparation for an inspection.
Recently, NOAA reaffirmed that an unexpected mortality event had been recognized for both humpback whales and Atlantic right whales along the East Coast.
These whales are the most recent of many that have been found dead along the East Coast in recent weeks. At least ten more whales have washed up on the shores of New Jersey and the other two states.
The building and seismic testing linked with offshore wind farms have been blamed for the increase in whale mortality, prompting calls for an urgent freeze on all offshore wind projects from local politicians, MPs, and conservationists.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., whose district runs along New Jersey’s eastern coastline, expressed concern to federal officials in late January that “ongoing activity on these projects may be contributing to whale fatalities” because of the frequency with which dead whales have been washing up on New Jersey’s shores over the past several months.
According to Smith, “the federal government has a responsibility to safeguard the environmental sustainability of the Jersey Shore,” and any initiatives that may impact whales, as well as the larger marine ecology and the economy it sustains, must be thoroughly assessed before proceeding.
Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of California, Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, and a consortium of environmental organizations coordinated by Clean Ocean Action are all pushing for a temporary halt to offshore drilling.
In the meanwhile, the CVOW wind farm may be found 27 miles off the shore of Cape Henry, the spot in Virginia Beach where two of the whales were spotted during the last week, and not far from where the third was discovered.
Opening as a test run in 2020, the 12-megawatt wind farm features two wind turbines. Once finished in 2026, CVOW would span 112,800 acres of the Atlantic Ocean and have 176 turbines.
The operator of CVOW, Dominion Energy, did not immediately provide a comment.