2017: An Unusual Year for Whales and Wind
In 2017, a total of seventeen North Atlantic right whales died. Unbeknownst to many, in 2017 Deepwater Wind (now Ørsted) also secured permission to disturb marine mammals—including 105 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales (NARW)—within Lease Area 0486. This region covers Coxes Ledge and now hosts the Revolution Wind and SouthFork Wind projects. By granting Level B harassment authorization, regulators acknowledged that whale habitats could be disrupted and their behaviors altered. Unfortunately, that seems to have happened.
In an alarming shift, the number of NARWs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence soared from about 50 in 2016 to more than 100 in 2017—coinciding with the 105 “harassment incidents” that Deepwater Wind had predicted and been permitted to deploy beginning in June of that year. It appears these whales fled northward, avoiding seismic activity off Coxes Ledge. According to official documents, surveys commenced on June 16, 2017, and between June 17 and November 26, fourteen NARW died in waters north of Coxes Ledge, from Massachusetts to Canada. NOAA remains unable to explain why so many whales perished in this timeframe and region.
During the two previous years (2015 and 2016) only three NARW deaths were recorded along the entire Atlantic coast. But starting in 2017—precisely when this new seismic activity began in Federal waters in the outer continental shelf—the species experienced an Unusual Mortality Event that continues to this day. A total of seventeen NARWs died in 2017. While it’s impossible to confirm that the surveys alone caused or contributed to these fatalities, the timing is difficult to ignore. Climate change does not unfold in a single year, and of the seven necropsies performed on the whales found in Canadian waters, only two indicated chronic line entanglements.
The parallels between these seismic surveys and the sudden spike in whale deaths should, at the very least, prompt further examination. NOAA’s own data, which does not even include all fatalities recorded in Canada, still reveals a sharp rise in NARW mortalities starting in 2017. Whether these surveys directly or indirectly influenced whale deaths—or whether other factors are at play—remains a critical question that demands urgent and thorough investigation.
2017 Incidental Take Authorization:
More links about the whale deaths in 2017:
Necropsy reports:
https://cwhc-rcsf.ca/docs/technical_reports/NARW_Incident_Report-%2020180405%20MD.pdf
https://baleinesendirect.org/en/right-whale-moralities-2017-overview/