Feds must rethink authorizing harassment of whales by offshore wind
By
David Wojick
|
August 14th, 2024
We now know offshore wind sonar surveys are a likely cause of whale deaths. For details, see my prior article.
Simply put, a significant fraction of authorized harassments likely causes whales to be killed.
The question is how should the Federal approval process for offshore wind surveys be restructured to incorporate this new whale-death knowledge? One obvious possibility is to simply ban the practice. That works for me, but may be too extreme to pull off.
If a certain number of whale deaths is deemed allowable, here is the outline of a death allocation procedure. Included are the other protected marine species for which sonar-induced deaths might be established, as well as harassment from other offshore wind activities. This is basically a death budget for the offshore wind program.
https://www.cfact.org/2024/08/14/feds-must-rethink-authorizing-harassment-of-whales-by-offshore-wind/