Greenpeace Founder believes the organization is going against its mission to help animals. He says they may be hurting sea life by putting the need for machines over the needs of animals to rectify climate change.

Over the last decade there has been a sharp rise in beached whale occurrences around the world, which have led many to raise concerns over future sea life sustainability.

Sound travels faster and covers greater distances in water than it does in air, as a result many sea creatures use sound to live.

Whales one of the largest and most prolific of sea creatures must rely primarily on sound for sensory perception, as well as for communication.

Sound, therefore, has a profound influence on navigation, feeding, socialization, breeding and other whale behaviour. source.

Beached Whale Occurrences

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirms that Since 2016, over 200 whale beachings have occurred on Atlantic coasts from Maine to Florida.

With more than one third of those deaths (72 total deaths) having occurred in New York region, mostly on Long Island and the Rockaways waterways.

There has been an especially significant uptick in whale mortality since 2017, which saw the beginning of several unusually high mortality events.

In fact, More than 90 whales died in U.S. waters in 2017 and 80 in 2018, compared to only 55 deaths in 2007, according to NOAA.

According to the Beyond the Reef Foundation in summer of 2022, more than 50 shortfin pilot whales ended up beached and dying on the coast near the East End of Anegada.

Only two of these majestic creatures survived thanks to the wonderful support of volunteers trying to get them back into the sea.

In July 2023 more than 50 pilot whales died after being stranded on a beach in Scotland, while volunteers could not save most of them.

Only one pilot whale survived out of the 55 beached on the Isle of Lewis in northwest Scotland on Sunday.

This was one of the largest mass whale beachings and deaths in the region in over a decade, causing many to sound the alarms.

April 2024 off the west coast of Australia more than 160 Pilot whales were stuck in shallow waters, bystanders were quick to come to the rescue.

Unfortunately 26 whales died as the could not be successfully pushed back into the water by volunteers.

Many scientists from around the world have attributed the rise in whales approaching land, to a number of factors.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Of the 178 humpback whale deaths that NOAA has investigated as part of the unusual mortality event, around half underwent necropsies.

“Of the whales examined, about 40 per cent had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement” 

 – Lauren Gaches Director of Public Affairs for NOAA Fisheries

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Wind Farm Effect

Although injuries from ship and nets cause whales severe damage and even death, it can be noted that during the 1980s, and 1990s, there were significantly less whales that were injuried, stranded or beached.

Greenpeace co-founder and former Greenpeace Canada president Patrick Moore believe sonar-like devices seem to be harming the hearing of whales. 

Th devices are used to map the ocean bottom and guide undersea construction for the development of wind farms.

“The development of these wind farms is interfering massively with the actual, known habitat of these creatures. The turbines will be inside known migratory pathways. The effect of the high-intensity acoustic pulses is unknown, and the excavations are muddying waters for what will be years on end. It is not reasonable to say there is no possibility of a causal relationship” between rising whale deaths and wind-farm construction. They tend to migrate south in the winter and north in the summer on certain pathways, just like many bird species do, and in this case, they appear to be swimming back into a death zone.”

– Patrick Moore Greenpeace co-founder and former Greenpeace Canada President

Why does Whale Hearing Matter? Deaf whales lose their sense of navigation and can beach themselves, at anytime losing their sense of direction.

Whales who have altered hearing capacity can die in shallow water, because they cannot hear how close they are to the coast.

Altering or destroyed hearing in whales can cause them to strike the hulls of ships or collide with other manmade objects because they cannot sense the objects due to a lack of hearing.

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle famously said: “A deaf whale is a dead whale.” 

Moore believes Greenpeace has betrayed the mission of its founders and is no longer putting the needs of wildlife first.

“They are protecting machinery instead of wild whales. Greenpeace says the best way to protect whales is to create ocean sanctuaries. Perhaps it would be a good idea to put the ocean sanctuaries where the whales are.”

– Patrick Moore Greenpeace co-founder and former Greenpeace Canada President

Greenpeace Position

Conversely, Greenpeace says there is “zero evidence” that offshore construction of wind farms is harming whales.

Even noting that “the best way to protect whales is to create ocean sanctuaries, for the animals to roam freely.

Greenpeace believes that by eliminating single-use plastics at the source and reducing our global dependency on oil and gas as well ending whale hunting in arctic nations and combating climate change, we will protect the animals.

Sounds Cause Damage

Before construction can begin on the thousands of offshore windmills crews must generate high-intensity acoustic pulses in order to map what is on and beneath the ocean floor.

SONAR and other high-intensity sounds at close range can cause damage and even death for whales.

From farther distances sound pulses can cause hearing loss and internal organ damage for animals who are affected.

Whether close range or at greater distances, affects of sound harms ultimately endanger the lives of whales, because they lose the ability to navigate the ocean.

Pro-wind farm groups point out that NOAA blames whale deaths on “human interaction” rather than wind-farm construction.

However  NOAA and U.S. Navy studies have shown that high-intensity sound pulses can bombard marine life, causing major orientation and damage.

For example high-intensity sound pulses may cause whales to throw themselves against the hulls of ships or onto the beaches.

Even vessel strikes, entanglement, and hearing damage are not mutually exclusive causes of death since once can cause the other.

When a whale loses it hearing it is literally blind in the water, with little ability to navigate, find food, avoid harmful objects and live in relative safety.

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