Posted on Dec 26, 2022
Lots of whales spotted around offshore wind farm zones along West Coast
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The federal government has commissioned Oregon State University to look into the possible impacts of offshore wind farms on marine wildlife. In the first year of this four-year project, the researchers spotted sizable numbers of seabirds and whales — including the largest animal on Earth — in the Oregon and Northern California areas that could one day host floating wind farms.
The OSU researchers are taking to the sea, to the air and listening underwater to document which seabirds, whales and dolphins forage in and around the parcels put up for lease by the Interior Department for offshore wind farm development.
“The (continental) shelf and the slope have high abundance and high density of marine mammals and seabirds,” reported OSU Marine Mammal Institute director Lisa Ballance after the first two of seven planned research cruises were in the books.
The OSU researchers are taking to the sea, to the air and listening underwater to document which seabirds, whales and dolphins forage in and around the parcels put up for lease by the Interior Department for offshore wind farm development.
“The (continental) shelf and the slope have high abundance and high density of marine mammals and seabirds,” reported OSU Marine Mammal Institute director Lisa Ballance after the first two of seven planned research cruises were in the books.
Lots of whales spotted around offshore wind farm zones along West Coast
Posted from opb.orgPosted in these groups: State of Oregon
Oregon State University
Wildlife
Research
State of California
Oregon State University Wildlife Research State of California
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."“There are quite a lot of large whales out there, quite a number,” said Lisa Ballance, the director of Oregon State’s Marine Mammal Institute and the principal investigator on the project. “Humpbacks are quite abundant. Increasingly, blue whales are quite abundant. We also see a whale that is less familiar to most people called a sei whale. It looks a lot like a blue whale, not quite as big but a very large animal.”
Blue whales, sei whales and some sub-populations of humpbacks are federally-listed as endangered species. As for birds, researchers have spotted threatened marble murrelets, as well as long-distance travelers like black-footed albatrosses and Laysan albatrosses.
Researchers need to do a lot more analysis before determining whether anchoring large floating wind turbines in the proposed waters would create problems for marine life, Ballance said."
..."“There are quite a lot of large whales out there, quite a number,” said Lisa Ballance, the director of Oregon State’s Marine Mammal Institute and the principal investigator on the project. “Humpbacks are quite abundant. Increasingly, blue whales are quite abundant. We also see a whale that is less familiar to most people called a sei whale. It looks a lot like a blue whale, not quite as big but a very large animal.”
Blue whales, sei whales and some sub-populations of humpbacks are federally-listed as endangered species. As for birds, researchers have spotted threatened marble murrelets, as well as long-distance travelers like black-footed albatrosses and Laysan albatrosses.
Researchers need to do a lot more analysis before determining whether anchoring large floating wind turbines in the proposed waters would create problems for marine life, Ballance said."
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