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The Rate of Whale Strandings in New Jersey This Year Is Astronomical

Here's what the data says

Author

Kyle Scott
March 21, 2023

whale and dolphin incidents since December

8 dolphin washed ashore and died on a Sea Isle beach today.

All eight dolphins that washed ashore Tuesday in Sea Isle City have died, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

The eight dolphins washed up on the beach near 52nd Street and Pleasant Avenue in the Jersey Shore town around 11 a.m.

Initially, six dolphins were found alive and two died.

But, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said the six dolphins' conditions were rapidly deteriorating. The center said they made the decision to "humanely euthanize the dolphins to prevent further suffering, as returning them to the ocean would have only prolonged their inevitable death."

CBS News

The scenes are, expectedly, horrific:

We won’t speculate about the exact cause of this particular stranding, but obviously it will fan the flames of skepticism about offshore drilling for windmills.

What’s Going On

According to a story from the Asbury Park Press, which has been chronicling the whale and dolphin strandings along the New Jersey and New York metro area coast, there have been 15 incidents involving whale or dolphin deaths since December 1, 2022:

  • 1 Keansburg, NJ (Dec. 5, 2022): Infant sperm whale

  • 2 Strathmere, Upper Township, Cape May County, NJ (Dec. 10, 2022): Female humpback

  • 3 Atlantic City, near South Chelsea Avenue, NJ (Dec. 23, 2022): Female humpback

  • 4 Atlantic City, near Florida Avenue, NJ (Jan. 7, 2023): Female humpback

  • 5 Brigantine, NJ (Jan. 12, 2023): Female humpback

  • 6 45 nautical miles off Brigantine, NJ (Jan. 18, 2023): Humpback

  • 7 12 miles off Long Beach Island, NJ (Jan. 28, 2023): Humpback

  • 8 Manasquan, Whiting Avenue Beach, NJ (Feb. 13, 2023): Female humpback

  • 9 Seaside Park, near M Street, NJ (March 1, 2023): Female humpback

  • 10 Long Beach Township, near Connecticut Avenue, NJ (Jan. 23, 2023): Common dolphin

  • 11 Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook, NJ (Feb. 18, 2023): Three common dolphins

  • 12 Avalon, Cape May County, NJ (Feb. 27, 2023): Bottlenose dolphin

  • 13 Sea Isle City, NJ (March 21, 2023): Eight common dolphins

  • 14 Lido Beach, NY (Jan. 30, 2023): Humpback

  • 15 Rockaway Beach, NY (mid-February, 2023): Female minke

Before this - and generally before windmill work began in earnest off the coast - we were already in the middle of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration terms an “unusual mortality event” (UME) of humpback whales along the entire US Atlantic coast since 2016.

The current number of whale and dolphin deaths in the NJ-NY area represents an uptick in even this unusually high rate.

The Data

Here’s what the data says.

The whale stranding event rate along the entire Atlantic coast since January, 2016, is roughly 2 per month.

The NOAA provides the following:

Nothing jumps out… until you realize that it’s only March. New Jersey already has 6 strandings this year. New York has 2. Virginia has 5.

The rate of whale strandings per month, by state, since 2016 - an already elevated period - has some curious outliers (with the help of ChatGPT):

Atlantic Coast whale strandings since 2016

And ranked, by month:

top 10 stranding rates

The current rate in New Jersey is more than 3x higher than any pre-2023 rate, and 10x higher than the state’s average per month rate since 2016 (.31).

It goes without saying we’re on pace for a record year of whale strandings along the Atlantic Coast.

What The Scientists Say About Windmills

Small-ish sample size, sure. But the data supports the observation here— there are more humpback whale strandings over the last few months than normal, by a wide margin.

Why?

It’s unclear. The NOAA has stopped well short of blaming this on windmill activity.

40% of the whales that they were able to test showed signs of ship strikes of some sort. The agency says it’s difficult to test all whales, especially once they begin decomposing. Funding is also an issue.

It’s unclear how many of the recent whales they have tested.

But it’s also important to note they haven’t ruled out a connection to windmill acitivity— they simply haven’t found one. And as scientists, they won’t opine without evidence.

Here’s what NOAA says:

Is U.S. offshore wind development linked to any whale deaths?

At NOAA Fisheries, we work with our partners to analyze and understand the causes of death when we are able, following the science and data. At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys.

We will continue to gather data to help us determine the cause of death for these mortality events. We will also continue to explore how sound, vessel, and other human activities in the marine environment impact whales and other marine mammals.

NOAA

In short, there is no direct evidence. Unless you count more whales dying in New Jersey and New York over the last few months than ever before.

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