A necropsy on a whale that washed ashore on Long Beach Island in New Jersey found the animal suffered multiple blunt force injuries, including a fractured skull and vertebrae.
The Marine Mammal Capture Center on Friday released the results of a necropsy performed Thursday evening on a juvenile, nearly 25-foot-long (7.6-meter) humpback whale that was found dead in the town of Long Beach.
Sheila Dean, the center’s director, said the whale was found to have bruises around its head; multiple fractures of the skull and cervical vertebrae; numerous dislocated ribs and a dislocated humerus.
“These injuries are consistent with blunt force trauma,” she wrote in a post on the group’s Facebook page.
Afterward, Dean would not attribute the injuries to any specific cause, noting that extensive testing remains to be done as part of the autopsy and tissue samples will be sent to laboratories across the country.
“We only report what we see,” she said.
The cause of the animal’s death is of great interest to many amid ongoing controversy surrounding offshore wind energy opponents’ belief that site preparation work for the projects is harming or killing whales along the US East Coast.
Numerous science agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Marine Mammal Commission; US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, say there is no evidence connection between the preparation of sea winds and the death of whales.
NOAA reported Friday that there have been 16 large whale deaths on the East Coast in 2024: 7 humpback whales between Massachusetts and North Carolina; 4 endangered North Atlantic right whales in Massachusetts, Virginia and Georgia; two sperm whales in South Carolina and Florida; two minke whales in North Carolina and Virginia and one fin whale in Rhode Island.
According to the agency, 82 large whales died on the East Coast in 2023.
The stranding center’s website says this is the first whale death in New Jersey this year, following 14 whale deaths in 2023.
Leading Light Wind is one of three wind farms built off the New Jersey coast. A statement released late Thursday said “our community must be wary of disinformation campaigns in response to these incidents,” noting that scientists have attributed many of the previous whale deaths to ship strikes or entanglement in fishing gear.
Protect Our Coast NJ, one of the most vocal groups opposing offshore wind energy, has expressed new skepticism about official claims about the whale deaths, citing similar distrust in some quarters of official information about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Blaming all cetacean deaths on entanglements and ship strikes is reminiscent of a phenomenon four years ago when seemingly every death was a COVID death, no matter how old or how sick the patient was before contracting the virus,” the group said. in a statement Thursday.
Leading Light, whose project will be built about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off Long Beach Island, said it is committed to building the project in a way that minimizes risks to wildlife.
“Minimizing the impact on the marine environment is of paramount importance to Leading Light Wind,” project leaders said. “Along with advance notice of our research activities and promoting active engagement with marine stakeholders, Leading Light Wind is investing in monitoring and mitigation initiatives to ensure the offshore wind industry thrives alongside a healthy marine environment.”
The whale’s necropsy also revealed evidence that the whale had become entangled in fishing gear in the past, although nothing was found when the whale washed ashore. Scars from previous entanglement, unrelated to the entanglement event, were found around the stalk, which is the muscular area where the tail connects to the body; on the tail itself and on the right anterior pectoral fin.