Two dead whales found off NJ in 2 days

🐋 Five whales have stranded at the Jersey Shore in 2024

🐋 Two minke whales stranded on Thursday and Friday

🐋 One of the whales is drifting towards Sandy Hook

Two dead minke whales have were off the Jersey Shore in the past two days, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

The first whale, estimated to be 16-18 feet long, was reported Thursday by the U.S. Coast Guard as floating in the Lower Bay/Raritan Bay. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation police officers located the whale and identified it as a minke whale. They were able to put a tracking device on the body to track its drift.

The whale was tracked Friday morning to still be drifting in open water and is expected to land in the area of Sandy Hook.

The second minke was spotted Friday morning around 6:30 a.m. near Trenton Avenue in Lavallette. It measured 10-12 feet, according to the MMSC. The carcass was removed with help from the borough and is being held for a necropsy.

Minkes are the smallest whales and are not endangered or threatened. They are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Two minke whales were found on Jersey Shore beaches in the fall of 2023 in Middletown and Barnegat Bay.

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Strandings and wind projects

The number of stranded cetaceans off the New Jersey coast has kept nearly the same pace in 2024 since December 2022 when 17 whales and 50 dolphins were found, according to the MMSC's count.

Before Thursday five whales and 40 dolphins have been found stranded at beaches or in the water. The last whale to strand was a humpback in Barnegat Bay on Sept. 23. The most recent dolphin was on Oct. 1 when a bottlenose dolphin was found.

The strandings are at the center of controversy over wind projects off the New Jersey coast. Opponents blame work for contributing to the increase in dead cetaceans and have called for work to stop while a closer look is taken to determine what role the works has played, if any. Supporters of the project continue to say there is no connection.

One project was temporarily stopped because of economic reasons. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities granted Leading Light Wind a pause on its project through Dec. 20 while its developers seek a source for the crucial components.

But the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved Atlantic Shores' plan to construct and operate an energy facility, a major milestone in moving the project forward. The project still requires a review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several state permits, the company said.

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'Friviolus' lawsuits?

Several citizens groups have filed lawsuits to stop the projects with Save LBI filing the latest. It claims that Atlantic Shores, the New Jersey project furthest along its state's approval path, would violate noise ordinances during pile driving and operation of hundreds of wind turbines. The group says it has several other lawsuits on the way.

Paulina O'Connor, executive director of the New Jersey Offshore Wind Alliance, said offshore wind is needed to combat climate change. She dismissed the lawsuits as "frivolous."

(Includes material Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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