Save Right Whales Coalition is a group of citizens, scientists, and conservationists who are concerned about the impact of large-scale offshore wind energy development on the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and other marine life.

Shocking as it may sound, environmental groups that are supporting offshore wind farms are taking money from wind energy developer Orsted and natural gas investors.

SRWC and its members do not take money from fossil fuel, nuclear, or any other energy industry. Most of us are unpaid volunteers, though one of our members, Environmental Progress, supports Save Right Whales through paid staff.

SRWC advocates against offshore wind projects that could be harmful to wildlife through rallies and protests designed to receive media coverage and educate the public. Some SWRC members are also involved in lawsuits against offshore wind projects.

SRWC and its members recognize industrial renewables cannot realistically power global economies and that other forms of energy are needed. We are still developing our position with regard to climate change, nuclear, and natural gas, as well as other technologies, like carbon capture and storage. Some of SRWC's members are pro-nuclear, others are pro-natural gas. For now, we are simply opposed to industrial offshore wind projects.

SRWC is strictly nonpartisan and nonideological. Our members are united in our concerns around industrial offshore wind but have a variety of views and political perspectives on other issues.

SRWC has members around the US. Our members are from a variety of US states, mostly on the East Coast near the North Atlantic right whale’s habitat, and we are growing every day! SRWC is open to new members from any state, country, or region.

You most certainly can join! SRWC is currently focused on the active wind projects proposed along the Atlantic shores but we have members from around the United States.

The easiest way to donate to SRWC is to donate to Environmental Progress, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Please see our “Take Action” page for more details.

We have many needs! We need to support our outreach effort along the East Coast. We need money to raise public awareness of the ongoing impacts of offshore industrial wind facilities on the marine environment. And we need money to support our legal and activist efforts to win a moratorium on new industrial wind projects within important habitat of the North Atlantic right whales’ habitat and other marine life.

Top priorities for 2023 include an ad campaign to raise public awareness about the potential extinction of the whales.

SRWC seeks to stop the development of offshore wind projects that could harm right whales and other marine life.

Offshore wind poses several threats to the environment. The planned 1,400 offshore wind turbines within the Rhode Island/Massachusetts wind energy areas will industrialize biologically significant habitat used by right whales to feed, socialize, and raise their young. Pile driving of wind turbines may injure or kill whales. They may also suffer injuries from vessel strikes within the construction zone. Other species in the ecosystem will also be negatively impacted.

In the North Sea, which has seen immense levels of offshore wind installations, it is documented that replacing the soft sea bottom with wind turbines has led to a loss of sand eels, which are the prey of many creatures including seabirds, mammals, and large fish. Offshore wind has led to increased beaching of cetaceans, which includes whales, and porpoises, and the North Sea has seen losses in all types of wildlife.

The truth is that we don’t know the impact wind turbines will have on the North Atlantic right whale. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries, the New England Aquarium, and the Center for Coastal Studies report that more studies are needed to understand the imprints of offshore wind on federally-listed endangered species. This report also notes that right whales are increasingly spending summer and fall in the zones chosen for wind energy development during the months disruptive and dangerous pile driving will occur.

The bottom line is industrial offshore wind development slated for the ocean south of Nantucket could potentially cause irreversible adverse impacts to critically-endangered and threatened species, and push them ever closer to extinction.

We do not know if the surveying or construction of US offshore wind turbines have contributed to the death of any whales.

But we do know that an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) was declared by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries unit for the North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) in 2017, and they were declared critically-endangered in 2020 with less than 400 right whales in total. Since 2017, 30 NARWs have died, 13 of them in the US. The right whale is teetering towards extinction, and any additional stressors could doom the species.

By the federal government’s own admission, wind power companies are already receiving permission to engage in activities that can harm right whales. Wind power companies have been approved for a “take” regarding right whales and other mammals. A take is a permit under the Marine Mammal Protection Act or the Endangered Species Act to engage in activities that may have negative incidental impacts on marine mammals. Here is a list of all active takes for energies other than fossil fuels. Since 2014, there have been 28 different US offshore wind lease marine site characterization surveys requests in the Atlantic, with a majority of those surveys taking place from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Marine site characterization surveys require incidental harassment authorizations (IHAs) from NOAA Fisheries. These surveys include side scan sonar and db thrusters with low frequency sound at levels that can harm or harass whales.

Oceanic noise pollution is generated by surveying and construction and harms whales in a number of ways. It has the potential to hinder whale calls used to maintain contact, gather to feed, and find mates. The anthropogenic sounds also result in habitat displacement, hearing loss, and, in right whales specifically, increased stress levels. Minke and NARWs hear in low frequency only, which is the same sound profile (low-frequency) that is prevalent underwater in both marine site characterization surveys and construction of offshore wind farms.

We are not the only ones concerned about offshore wind plants. Several US environmental organizations raised the question whether offshore wind will harm wildlife, writing in 2020 of their “profound concern regarding flaws in the incidental harassment authorizations issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for marine site characterization surveys required for offshore wind development.”

OSW construction projects require marine characterization surveys to inform as to the conditions of the seabed where the turbines and other project infrastructure will be embedded. High resolution geophysical (HRG) equipment is used to generate strong, but quick bursts of sound that reflect off the seabed and produce an image of the bottom topography. Sub-bottom profilers penetrate below the seabed to assess subsurface conditions.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) exists to protect whales and other marine mammals from any act that “harasses, hunts, captures, kills, or attempts to harass, hunt, capture, or kill” them. These acts are called “takes” and are generally prohibited without a special permit, called an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) or incidental take permit.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is officially listed as “critically endangered” and receives the full protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. The ultimate goal of the ESA is to conserve and recover species so they no longer require the protections of the Act. The task of protecting endangered marine mammals is given to NOAA Fisheries.

But NOAA has been issuing a large number of IHAs to wind developers. We believe BOEM and NOAA are not following the ESA or Marine Mammal Protection Act, which will cause direct harm to the NARW, and its core habitat, pushing the species ever closer to extinction. We are concerned about the unstudied cumulative impacts from the surveying, now occurring in the eight side by side development lease areas, covering part of the whales’ core habitat. We do not know if the surveys have contributed to the very recent news of their population sinking to 336.

The North Atlantic right whale is categorised as Critically-Endangered, meaning the species faces a very high risk of extinction. Researchers estimate that there are 336 individuals, and fewer than 100 breeding females. The North Atlantic right whale is among the most threatened of whale species and has shown no sign of recovery despite anti-whaling regulations put in place in the 1930s.

The planned 1,400 turbines will stretch across 1,400 square miles of ocean, an area the roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Wind energy is low carbon, but has negative ecological impacts that may not be worth the sacrifice. We can’t destroy the environment to save it.

Most of the drop in US carbon emission has come from natural gas replacing coal.