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Three dolphins reportedly died along the New Jersey Shore over the weekend.
Photographer Matthew Renk shared a video on Twitter on Saturday of the marine mammals floundering in the Sandy Hook Bay surf.
A rescue team from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, a nonprofit that assists in strandings, was not able to save them.
“We picked them up,” Sheila Dean, director of the center, told NJ.com. “All of them perished on the beach.”
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This incident comes on the heels of weeks of similar events, including several large whale strandings along the East Coast and a dozen in the New York-New Jersey area since Dec. 1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A common bottlenose dolphin surfaces in the Potomac River near Reedville, Virginia, on Sept. 25, 2019. (Parker Michels-Boyce for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
New Jersey residents and some officials rallied in Point Pleasant Beach over the weekend, calling for a federal moratorium on offshore wind energy development until the reason for the recent uptick in whale deaths was determined.
“Without serious, aggressive and independent analysis on the impact of these projects, they must be paused,” Republican Rep. Chris Smith asserted. “We want the truth. We demand to be heard and our deep concerns addressed – not trivialized, mocked or dismissed. The people of New Jersey deserve better.”
However, experts with NOAA and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have told reporters that they have not seen evidence offshore wind activity has caused any of the whale deaths. Furthermore, some environmental organizations and clean energy advocacy groups have said it is irresponsible to assume offshore wind is harming marine wildlife.
Waves break in the Atlantic Ocean in front of the Manhattan skyline on Sept. 8, 2018, as seen from Sandy Hook, New Jersey. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
“At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales. There are no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys for offshore wind development,” NOAA said in FAQs.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s office told Fox News Digital in a Tuesday statement that the administration takes every potential threat to the state’s marine ecosystems and mammals very seriously and will always ground policy decisions in up-to-date science and evidence. The office said the notion that the administration and its federal counterparts have not adequately investigated whale deaths is “categorically false.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy gives a speech on the Hudson River tunnel project on Jan. 31, 2023, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Local and federal partners who have investigated this phenomenon have found that there is “no evidence of specific links between recent whale mortalities and ongoing surveys for offshore wind development,” according to deputy press secretary Bailey Lawrence.
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Fox News Digital’s Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.
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