I recently reported about the growing concerns that off-shore wind farms heralded as critical new energy sources by eco-activists may be responsible for a spate of whale deaths off New Jersey and New York shores.
Now another whale has washed ashore in New York.
A massive humpback whale was discovered washed up on the shores of Long Island, New York on Monday, the latest in a series of incidents in which a rash of dead whales have been spotted in the surrounding waters in recent months and along the East Coast.The dead whale was found around 6:30 a.m. on Lido Beach in Nassau County, Fox New York reported. Emergency crews were trying to figure how to dispose of the marine mammal.”This is by far the largest,” Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin told News 12. “The crews that have been here for almost two decades have never seen a whale this size. It’s 35-feet-long. Just pulling it up on the shore, we had to bring in a heavy crane. And the wires were snapping because of the tonage it was required to really bring it to higher ground.
This is the 10th whale that has beached in the region recently.
Researchers estimate the whale is 40 feet long and is believed to be about 5 years old.The humpback is the 10th large whale to be stranded on Atlantic beaches — including on Long Island and New Jersey — in the past two months.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports 178 humpback whale strandings across 13 Atlantic states since 2016. The agency has labeled those deaths an “unusual mortality event” and says they are still being investigated.NOAA says about half the whales found dead had been struck by vessels. Whether the whale found on Lido Beach was the victim of a vessel strike or died of some other means, the answer will be determined by experts from the Atlantic Marine Conversation Society.
Interestingly, a Rutgers University study published in the summer of 2022 showed humpback whales not only returning to New York City waters to feed every year but staying longer.
“We discovered that about half of the humpback whales seen in the New York City area stay for a month or longer and will return for 2 to 3 years in a row,” Danielle Brown, lead researcher for non-profit Gotham Whale, told The Post in an email.The average stay for a humpback in the New York Bight Apex — the waters from Fire Island to the Manasquan Inlet in New Jersey — is 37.6 days, according to the study published earlier this month.There’s not a lot of evidence to show that the whales were around consistently before this study, according to Brown. While they did visit the New York Bight, it was mainly in winter.
Meanwhile, the realities of wind energy are slowly blowing into the media.
If someone had taken a magic wand and instantly tripled the number of wind turbines in Kansas and Oklahoma this morning, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Calm winds mean no electricity.The problem was not confined to the USA. This morning, I learned of a wind farm that produced negative wind energy for two days in Canada. Really! Story below.For four days almost zero power. For two days the wind farm produced negative electricity!How could it produce “negative” energy? The wind was so light during this period the blades were not turning. Because it takes power to run the farm (navigation lights, computers, etc.), the wind farm used one megawatt of electricity while producing zero. Negative energy.
Good policy is based on good data, sound choices based on that data, and accepting the realities when they run counter to the preferred narrative of the day.
I hope the causes of the whale deaths are accurately determined and appropriate choices are made when the information is revealed.
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