ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 18, 2023
Federal environmental and energy officials moved Wednesday to quell a growing controversy over whether work done by the offshore wind power industry is killing whales in the northeastern U.S., saying there is no evidence this is happening. NOAA said there have been 14 whale strandings on the East Coast since Dec. 1. Since January 2016, 178 of the animals have washed ashore dead between Maine and Florida. Post-mortem examinations were able to be done on about half the animals, and of those, 40% showed evidence of “human interaction,” such as entanglement with fishing gear or being struck by vessels. In no case has a whale been proven to have been killed by offshore wind activity.