BALTIMORE – Last week, someone near Maryland’s Eastern Shore found the remains of a beached whale.
A dead subadult male humpback whale was discovered on the north end of Assateague Island National Seashore last Wednesday, January 31, according to Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police officers.
“National Park Service staff moved the carcass out of the tidal zone to a more accessible location, and a necropsy was conducted Feb. 2 by staff and volunteers of the Maryland DNR Stranding Response Program and the National Aquarium,” Gregg Bortz, a spokesperson for the Maryland DNR, stated
According to Bortz, the examination was unable to establish a cause of death with certainty, and samples are being sent for diagnostic testing.
It was the area’s second beached whale carcass discovered in three weeks, according to WJLA in Washington, D.C.
Data show that 37 dead humpback whales were found along the East Coast in 2023.
The spate of whale deaths coincides with efforts by Maryland officials to build the first offshore wind projects in the state.
Momentum Wind and MarWin are two projects being developed by the wind energy company based in Baltimore, US Wind.
These two projects will be built on an Atlantic Ocean site, northeast of Assateague Island National Seashore, 20 miles off the coast of Maryland.
“I think there are a lot of geographic benefits that the state of Maryland has that make us prepared to be an offshore wind leader, but it’s also about the measure of entrepreneurial activity and vigor that we have in the state of Maryland that we want to compete,” Moore stated. “We think this is not only an industry we won’t just compete in, but an industry that we can win in.”
