Thousands of marine mammals DEAD on Britain’s beaches — as ‘alarming’ numbers of strandings are recorded…
Whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals are dying in large numbers
“…it doesn’t take a genius to understand that building huge industrial wind farms in the midst of prime marine wildlife habitat is perhaps not the cleverest thing to do…”
Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises
Defra has finally published its annual reports outlining cetacean strandings around the UK coastline during 2021 and 2022.
The data is out. And it’s a shocker.
Yet another record year for cetacean strandings….
2,094 whales, dolphins and porpoises were reportedly stranded around UK coasts during the two year period, 2021–2022:
There were 1,171 during 2021 and 923 in 2022.
It means that 2021 saw the highest ever recorded number of dead cetaceans in the UK, breaking even the previous year’s record high, which I reported on in May.
That’s two consecutive record breaking years for cetacean strandings, in spite of a modest drop in 2022.
And that should be ringing alarm bells.
Ask your average government these two questions:
What’s the biggest threat to wildlife? and What’s killing all the whales?
More than likely they’ll tell you “climate change”, it’s a vague cover-all message that conveys a sense of impending doom and is invoked to explain everything from dead whales and the lack of butterflies to rising energy prices.
They’ll tell you they are ‘tackling’ it. How? By building wind farms.
Yes, they’re ‘tackling’ the demise of the natural world by blighting what remains of it with concrete, steel and plastic.
Of course, it’s a ‘no brainer’. Exactly. No brains.
This way of dismissing all the world’s ills by blaming ‘climate change’ diminishes both the real implications of climate change and the magnitude of losing nature due to humankind’s incompetence.
With regard to the dying oceans, government officials might wear worried expressions and suggest things like ‘pollution’ or something to do with ‘over-fishing’, while chomping away on their tuna sandwich from a plastic packet, all the while being super careful to avoid mentioning the great big fat elephant in the room - wind farms - those massive industrial estates built right in the middle of pristine natural wildlife habitats.
The offshore wind industry and its potential impact on all marine life…
As regular readers will know, for a long time I have warned about a possible correlation between the increasing number of cetacean deaths and the expansion of the offshore wind industry, with vast wind farms proliferating in our seas. With this in mind, and noting the shocking levels of cetacean mortality, I’ve also started looking into the astonishing number of dead seals being washed up on our beaches. More than 1,900 seals stranded on UK beaches in 2021 and 2022.
Although the threats to seals are many and varied, it is known that seals, like cetaceans, can be detrimentally affected by the noise from wind farm construction. As with cetaceans, there is the potential for seals to suffer hearing damage from direct noise caused by pile driving. One also has to wonder if the ‘startle and flee’ response, (noted in porpoises when acoustic deterrents are employed during wind farm construction), might also apply to seals, leading to increased risk of disorientation and entanglement in fishing gear, along with other dangers they might otherwise avoid (see my previous article for more on this under-researched issue).
UK: huge numbers of dead marine mammals…
To give an overview, during the two years 2021–2022, a total of more than 4,000 marine mammals, including cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) and pinnipeds (seals) were stranded around the UK’s coasts.
It’s an international problem too…
I’m afraid the news from across the North Sea is no better, data from the Netherlands, shows that more than 4,900 marine mammals (cetaceans and pinnipeds) washed up dead and dying on Dutch beaches over the same two year period.
Shocking figures - thousands and thousands of dead marine mammals
The bottom line is that the combined data for cetaceans and pinnipeds from just the UK and the Netherlands, during the two years 2021 and 2022, suggests that more than 8,900 marine mammals perished. It’s an appalling number.
What of France, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and all the other coastal European nations, each with their own existing or planned offshore wind farms…? Well, that will be the subject of further research - but it doesn’t bode well.
I’ll leave all those alarming figures with you to ponder; there are links to the various data portals at the end of this article. Please have a look, check the data for yourselves and draw your own conclusions.
Rapid industrialisation of our oceans.
There are of course many potential causes for the rising mortality levels of marine mammals, but one of the likely culprits I believe is the ongoing rapid industrialisation of our seas in the name of ‘green’ energy. Every stage of wind farm development - from surveys, through construction, to operation, maintenance and ultimately decommissioning of these vast marine industrial estates - involves disruption to wildlife and damage to delicate, little studied, ecosystems.
There are staggeringly ambitious plans to push forward with huge offshore (and onshore) wind farm projects across the UK and Europe. Without knowing what effect this is doubtless having on our wildlife, those plans seem completely reckless. We should stop building new offshore wind farms until such time as we know the harm we are doing to wildlife in the process.
Whatever opinion you reach after seeing the data, I think we can all agree that something is going very wrong in our oceans, and we must pause to consider the repercussions of our actions, as humans continue to destroy the marine environment through clumsy and irresponsible development.
After all, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that building huge industrial wind farms in the midst of prime marine wildlife habitat is perhaps not the cleverest thing to do, especially while promoting the myth that it’s all for the good of the environment.
We await the 2023 reports with interest….
UK data: https://randd.defra.gov.uk/ProjectDetails?ProjectId=20759
Scottish data: https://strandings.org/publications/
Dutch data: https://stranding.nl/statistics/
- Important note: Defra’s contracts were amended after 2020, effectively separating the responsibilities for data collection between Scotland and the rest of the UK, this now means that the CSIP (Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme) is contracted to collect and collate data for England and Wales, while Scotland’s data is now handled by the SMASS (Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme).
- So, unlike previous years, the CSIP data no longer includes Scottish figures. However, I have trawled through it all, including the SMASS reports and combined the figures to provide a better, more complete, picture of strandings across the whole country.
- Cetacean stranding data provided by CSIP’s partner organisations in Northern Ireland (DAERA), Isle of Man (Manx WT) and Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey Governments) was included in the latest CSIP reports.
For clarity, the term ‘stranded’ in the context of this article includes the large majority of animals in the reports that were washed up dead on beaches, a few that were found dead at sea, and a handful that were found stranded alive and re-floated, though the latter represents a very small number. We do not know of course how many animals perish at sea, decompose and are never counted.
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N.B. I have no agenda other than a genuine love for this amazing planet.
I am not paid by anyone to write this.
I’m not a ‘shill’ for the nuclear industry, nor the fishing industry, nor any government or political party.
I’m an independent citizen of this incredible planet, with a strong desire to leave a world as wonderful for future generations as it has been for me.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organisation, employer or company.
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