Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / No, Offshore Wind Does Not Cause Whale Strandings

Transcript

No, Offshore Wind Does Not Cause Whale Strandings · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Is offshore wind affecting whales? That's the question that we're
• 0:03
  gonna answer on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Because
• 0:07
  over the last couple of years, there have been a number of whale strandings that
• 0:10
  are concerning to researchers. Now the blame is being put on
• 0:13
  the offshore wind industry for these strandings. There are
• 0:17
  certain groups that are actually coming out and saying that it's offshore
• 0:20
  wind. They include politicians, nonprofit organizations, fishing
• 0:24
  industries, as well as media outlets. You'll probably guess
• 0:28
  who those are. We're going to talk about them as well as what's
• 0:31
  actually causing the whale strandings on this episode. Let's
• 0:35
  start the show. Hey
• 0:40
  everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
• 0:44
  your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,
• 0:47
  how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean
• 0:51
  by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be looking at offshore
• 0:54
  wind industry and if it affects the recent strandings of a number of different whales
• 0:58
  along the East coast of the U S or we do, if this is your first time to
• 1:01
  this podcast, whether it's the video or the audio version, there is more information
• 1:05
  for you over at our website at speakupforblue.com. That's
• 1:09
  speakupforblue.com. If you want more information to
• 1:13
  your inbox and you can't go to my website all the time, not to worry, we
• 1:16
  have that answer for you. Go sign up for our newsletter at speakupforblue.com forward
• 1:20
  slash newsletter and just put in your email and you will get an email
• 1:23
  Monday to Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern to find out more about Ocean
• 1:27
  News, Ocean Job, and our latest episodes. So check that out,
• 1:30
  speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Let's get into the
• 1:34
  show. Let's just get down to it. There have been, over the
• 1:37
  last couple of years, some whale strandings on the east coast of the US.
• 1:40
  They're concerning. So we have to ask the question, what's happening
• 1:44
  there? What are the factors that are causing these whale strandings? And
• 1:48
  some people think they have the answer. Those people are
• 1:51
  Donald Trump, the Republican Party, fossil fuel-funded nonprofit
• 1:55
  organizations, as well as Fox News, like 50 media
• 1:59
  outlets from Fox News. They are saying that it's the offshore wind
• 2:02
  industry. I wonder why they're doing that. But that's what they're
• 2:05
  saying. They've been perpetuating that message over different channels,
• 2:09
  whether it be social media or on TV, to say, hey, you
• 2:12
  know what? This is the problem. Wind is the problem. We know Donald Trump
• 2:16
  has a problem with windmills for a long time. Right.
• 2:19
  There's a famous quote or the famous speech where he's talking about how if
• 2:22
  you have your your TV hooked up to electricity and a windmill
• 2:26
  coming out of your house and the wind stops, then your TV goes out
• 2:29
  and you can't watch TV anymore. I mean, who wants that? Right. It's
• 2:33
  absolute BS. It doesn't happen that way. That's not the way it works. If
• 2:36
  you want more information, you can start looking it up on on about
• 2:39
  windmills and how windmills work. Regardless of that, windmills have
• 2:43
  some positive impacts. We're going to talk about that later on in the show. But the first
• 2:46
  question to ask is, does the offshore wind industry affect whale
• 2:49
  strandings or cause whale strandings? That's a question you have to ask because
• 2:53
  there's been an increase of windmills put out into the offshore, in
• 2:57
  the ocean, in the Atlantic Ocean. We have to ask the question, has it really affected
• 3:00
  us? Well, researchers at NOAA, as well as academic institutions, have
• 3:04
  been studying this and they said they have not found any
• 3:07
  evidence that are linking the offshore wind industry to
• 3:13
  Some argue the noise from offshore wind farms can impact
• 3:17
  a whale's navigation and lead to stranding or death, but
• 3:21
  our sources say there's no evidence to support that theory. The
• 3:24
  Marine Mammal Commission, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and
• 3:28
  NOAA Fisheries all say there's no evidence to link these strandings
• 3:31
  to offshore wind energy development, nor is there evidence linking noise
• 3:35
  from site surveys causing the death of whales. NOAA has
• 3:38
  been tracking the increase in whale deaths over the last six years and
• 3:42
  determined that vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear
• 3:45
  are the greatest human threats to large whales. So we know there's
• 3:50
  So why is Donald Trump, non-profit organizations, media
• 3:54
  outlets, and the fishing industry talking about getting
• 3:58
  rid of offshore wind or offshore wind causing problems? Well because it
• 4:01
  causes problem for them. Because the more you have offshore wind, the
• 4:04
  less you depend on fossil fuels. The more you have offshore wind,
• 4:08
  there's less area to fish. And the fishing communities are worried about
• 4:12
  finding fish. That's their main priority. Also, if you start to
• 4:15
  talk about offshore wind causing whales, you're taking the attention away
• 4:19
  from fishing gear entanglements, which I'll talk about in just a sec, about
• 4:23
  affecting whales. That is where the real problem exists. So you
• 4:27
  have the reason why these outlets and why these
• 4:30
  organizations are and why this these politicians are talking about
• 4:34
  how offshore winds could be affecting the whale strandings they're just
• 4:38
  talking out of the butt really there's no evidence so we know that there's no
• 4:41
  evidence so we have to say it over and over and over again not only do
• 4:44
  i have to say it over and over again on the video we had to say it over and over again on
• 4:47
  a number of different media outlets like social media and stuff because people
• 4:51
  are just not going to believe it and you have to get that out there. What is
• 4:54
  causing these strandings is really definitive and
• 4:58
  it's been studied for years and that is vessel strikes and
• 5:01
  that is also fish entanglement. Now I've talked about that in depth
• 5:05
  on these episodes before so I'm not going to go completely in depth.
• 5:09
  But vessel strikes are a huge cause for whale strandings and
• 5:12
  whale deaths. And we know this because of the North Atlantic right whale population
• 5:17
  is extremely affected by vessel strikes, so much so that
• 5:20
  they've rerouted shipping lanes to avoid ship strikes
• 5:24
  with these whales. On the other hand, you have fishing
• 5:27
  gear entanglement. So fishing gear entanglement affects the
• 5:30
  whales by the whale swimming over fishing gear, whether it
• 5:33
  be swimming through a line that's attached down to a
• 5:37
  lobster trap or a crab trap. And it goes into their fins. The
• 5:40
  line cuts into their fins where there's actually bleeding and they get infected and
• 5:44
  they could die from that infection. And if it's prolonged, they're not
• 5:47
  rescued in time. So we've seen a lot of whales die with fishing
• 5:50
  gear entangled on them as they wash up on shore. We also
• 5:54
  don't see some of the whales that die offshore and they just sink to the
• 5:57
  bottom. because it's really hard to detect that. It's not easy to detect
• 6:00
  that at all, as you can imagine. So those are the two main causes
• 6:04
  that are affecting whales. Now, the big thing is a lot of
• 6:07
  people are going to be like, well, hold on a second. You have these windmills, and they
• 6:11
  are huge, and they're going up against in an
• 6:14
  ocean where there's a lot of animals, where there's a lot of places, and it's a sensitive
• 6:18
  area. And yes, You're right, it is a very sensitive area.
• 6:21
  And there are potential negative impacts when you install these
• 6:25
  windmills. So some of the things that could impact is the construction noise
• 6:28
  and disturbance. So pile driving and other constructing activities generate
• 6:32
  underwater noise, which can disturb marine mammals, fish, invertebrates, potentially
• 6:36
  causing stress and displacement. Prolonged exposure to
• 6:39
  very high noise may impact communication, navigation,
• 6:43
  and foraging behaviors of whales and dolphins. The other thing
• 6:46
  is habitat alteration. Installation of the wind turbine foundations
• 6:50
  alters the seabed and can displace the benthic species. Changes
• 6:54
  in sediment patterns can impact habitats such as coral
• 6:57
  reefs and seagrass beds. Collision risks so that marine animals,
• 7:01
  particularly birds and bats, may collide with turbine blades,
• 7:05
  leading to injury and mortality. And the risk is generally lower for
• 7:08
  marine species like fish and cetaceans and marine
• 7:12
  mammals, but you never know. Electromagnetic fields, EMFs,
• 7:15
  undersea cables transmitting electricity or produce electric magnetic
• 7:19
  fields, which can affect species like sharks, rays, certain
• 7:22
  fish that rely on electroreception for navigation and hunting. Displacement
• 7:27
  of species, so noise, habitat changes, or construction activity,
• 7:31
  may lead to temporary or permanent displacement of
• 7:34
  sensitive marine species from critical areas. and then cumulative impacts,
• 7:38
  all of them together, of multiple wind farms, especially in
• 7:41
  densely developed regions, may lead to broader ecological changes.
• 7:45
  But the creation of artificial reefs. When you put a turbine in,
• 7:49
  you attract benthic habitats. You attract coral reefs, you
• 7:52
  attract oysters, you attract mussels, you attract a lot of different animals, which
• 7:55
  actually lead to the second positive impact is fish aggregation.
• 7:59
  Those habitats that gather, fish gather around those and end
• 8:03
  up benefiting off of those habitats. Of course, windmills are a
• 8:06
  vessel to reduce carbon emissions. Just the fact that you have windmills makes
• 8:10
  us more dependent on renewable energies and less dependent on fossil fuels,
• 8:13
  which cause more carbon emissions. And then of course, research and monitoring
• 8:17
  opportunities. There's a lot of things that you can do and there's developing projects that are happening that
• 8:21
  can actually help us monitoring different types of marine environments that
• 8:24
  are in and around these windmills. When we
• 8:27
  talk about the negative impacts, you probably wonder, wow, there's a lot of negative impacts that
• 8:31
  are happening within this area. But there are mitigation measures
• 8:34
  that happen during construction and after. So to minimize those negative
• 8:38
  impacts, the offshore wind industry implements various measures.
• 8:41
  So one of those is timing construction to avoid sensitive breeding or
• 8:44
  migration periods using noise reduction technology, such
• 8:48
  as bubble curtains or quieter pile driving methods, designing to
• 8:52
  minimize the EMF impacts, so the electric magnetic field
• 8:55
  impacts, and then of course the last one, conducting environmental
• 8:59
  impact assessments and ongoing monitoring. By balancing these
• 9:02
  measures, offshore wind can contribute to a more sustainable energy
• 9:06
  future while reducing harm to the marine environment. There is nothing in
• 9:09
  here that says there's reason to believe or evidence to believe that
• 9:13
  windmills present an ongoing problem that
• 9:16
  will cause strandings or even deaths of marine mammals. So
• 9:20
  the fact that you're hearing about this on different types of social media or
• 9:23
  maybe on either podcasts or right wing information outlets
• 9:27
  does not mean it's true. Believe the science, listen to the scientists.
• 9:31
  They know what they're talking about and understand that there are
• 9:34
  multiple and cumulative effects out in the ocean. One of them
• 9:38
  is not the offshore wind when it comes to whale strandings. So that's it for today's
• 9:41
  episode. I just want to kind of go through that because I think it's important for you to know. If
• 9:44
  you have any questions or comments, you can hit me up on Instagram at how
• 9:48
  to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And don't forget to
• 9:51
  subscribe and hit that notification button on this YouTube channel.
• 9:55
  If you're watching on YouTube or on Spotify, hit the follow button and on
• 9:58
  Apple podcasts, as well as any other of your favorite podcast app.
• 10:01
  Let me know what you think of the episode. I'd love to hear from you on Instagram. That's
• 10:05
  it for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of
• 10:08
  the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a