A humpback whale stranding death was recorded April 11 at Long Beach in Ocean County, the only one so far in 2024 in New Jersey and well down from the seven recorded humpback whale deaths reported here from January to April last year.
A necropsy performed by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center at Brigantine indicated that the 25-foot long 1-year-old whale suffered blunt force trauma that included multiple skull fractures and dislocations. The injuries point strongly toward a vessel strike.
The Marine Mammal Commission and other federal agencies have repeatedly stated there is no evidence linking offshore wind site preparation work to the spate of whale deaths along the East Coast in recent years.
Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is awaiting an Office of Management and Budget ruling on a proposed expansion of a vessel speed law. This would be beneficial to all whales and other marine mammals of the East Coast.
Seasonal 10 knot speed limits currently imposed on vessels 65 feet or longer would apply to vessels 35 feet or longer, and speed limits would be reduced in other areas where right whale pods have been observed to be traveling. NOAA has estimated that there are only 360 right whales remaining, down from 400 in 2020.
In New Jersey, these seasonal zones would last from Nov. 1 to May 30 and extend up to 50 miles from the New Jersey shoreline. The opposition from fishing groups, who say they rely on high-speed travel to get their customers to fishing grounds expeditiously, has been fierce.
More whale deaths may occur off the Jersey coast this year, and some residents and public officials will keep trying to blame offshore wind.
Speeding commercial and private fishing vessels are a well-documented threat to marine mammals, especially right whales, which feed near the surface. NJ officials are going out of their way to ensure that offshore wind activity follows best practices for marine mammal protection.
In mid-April Governor Phil Murphy added $3.7 million in funding to the state’s Research and Monitoring Initiative. It is hoped that this additional research will finally convince the public that the ongoing (since 2016) “unusual whale mortality event” has nothing to do with offshore wind development. This research will include whale surveys and tagging, ocean circulation studies, and bird and bat tracking.