There are studies and reports detailing how marine mammals, and especially whales, are behaving strangely and producing odd sounds as a result of wind farms. In the recent airing of an ABC news segment focusing on the impact of offshore marine technology, reporters and film crew scientists claim to document and explain the so-called ‘mass odd migration’ of the whales that defend and occupy the wind energy border.
Technological advancements have the potential to disturb marine mammals
While the whales were being documented, the whales were being investigated in disregard of, and entirely separate from, the offshore wind border farm and field of technology regard.
Technological advancements in offshore marine wind farms emit low-frequency turbines and have the potential to disturb critical behaviors of marine mammals. Studies have predicted increased marine migratory disturbances, spatial contraction, and, in extreme cases, overwhels caused by newly erected wind farms and wind eco-structures.
Wherever possible, Environment America advocates for offshore wind to replace fossil fuels. However, the continued, growing, and quickening rate of whale strandings and the changes in whale behavior are concerning. Some groups are defending the wind farms with the assertion that no direct link has been made to the deaths of the whales. However, they do admit that the climate-change-induced ship strikes are threats. Others insist there are disruptions caused by the turbines, and we must investigate this more seriously.
Experts have offered acoustic disturbance as the reason for the change in behavior of the whales. The construction of wind turbines includes pile-driving that emits large quantities of underwater noise. Moreover, they say the operational turbines cause relics and vibrations that build up in the Water Column and will even hum through the water.
Increased vessel traffic also plays a part in the disturbance
There are ship strikes with the increasing vessel traffic caused by the wind farm, and finally, whales in the active construction zones of the farms.
Then there are habitat displacements caused by large-scale offshore wind farms, which will eventually impact the prey abundance and relocation of whales to new feeding areas.
In fully understanding the large new rectangular offshore structures and their effect in offshore Industrialization, the cumulative effect on the ecosystems in the offshore zones helps to fully understand the large new rectangular offshore structures and their impact in offshore Industrialization with a better understanding of the offshore large Industrialized Structures.
Finding a way to balance the immediate necessity of acquiring renewable energy and the need to conserve life on Earth
We need to find a way to work with the ecosystems so we can deploy offshore wind to complete the decarbonization strategies.
The scientists suggest that we find a way to monitor and manage the following actions:
- Temporarily stopping construction for the year to avoid construction during peak migration.
- Using improved noise-reduction methods to help with pile driving.
- Moving cables and turbines to other areas away from potential whale habitats.
Such actions should allow the harm to be mitigated and the offshore wind energy systems to be developed appropriately.
The construction and energy producers need to be open and allow independent researchers to come to a construction site so that they can all see the data gaps that developers have concerning legal disputes over those construction sites.
With offshore wind, developers have to balance the scheduling of wind with the need not to lose the public trust that they are trying to work toward in terms of climate goals. Currently, turbines and marine life will continue to be researched by scientists with the hope of getting answers to the role turbines play in marine life.
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