Shore and wildlife advocates want offshore wind farm development paused until a cause can be determined.
By Steven Rodas | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Tire tracks in the sand marked the burial ground of a massive humpback whale Monday.
The dead 30-foot female whale washed up ashore Saturday and two days later lay buried underneath, leaving behind a decaying rotten smell.
“What a sad end to an animal in the prime of her life and an endangered species,” Cindy Zipf, executive director of Long Branch-based non-profit, Clean Ocean Action, told NJ Advance Media while walking on the beach. “The federal government should have been here with busloads of people really doing an examination if they were taking this seriously.”
Zipf was in Atlantic City on Monday afternoon — after the sixth dead whale was found on the New York-New Jersey coastline in 33 days — to ask the federal government to investigate if the whale deaths and work being done for offshore wind turbines could be to blame. She called the string of deaths “unprecedented.”
Steve Sweeney: NJ economy depends on offshore wind energy
While New Jersey moves toward a “cleaner” future, offshore wind continues to be among the hot-button renewable energy alternatives. Among the concerns expressed by residents and some officials is the impact to whales and other animals before, during, and after, construction.
It’s unclear if the deaths of half-a-dozen whales in the region since December is high. And although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is currently studying an uptick of reported humpback whale deaths since 2016 across the East Coast, officials there say so far offshore wind has not been the culprit.
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