Equinor and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will hold a news announcement, Wednesday, September 7, at the New York Aquarium on the expansion of the collaborative effort to monitor several species of large whales in the New York Bight. 

The decade-long project (2019-2029) will be one of the longest acoustic monitoring projects in U.S. history in a wind lease area, covering the pre-construction, construction, and post-construction phases of Empire Wind I and II in the New York Bight. The project includes a substantial new investment from Equinor and its partner bp.

Two deployed moored near real-time acoustic monitoring buoys located in the Empire Wind lease area have compiled 2,000 days of monitoring data to date. Data and whale detections from this extensive monitoring initiative are analyzed by leading WCS scientists,  and transmitted to the NY Aquarium, allowing the public to see them in near real-time at an interactive kiosk in its Ocean Wonders exhibit, and can also be visualized on WCS and WHOI websites

The project will help generate new and important information to better protect some of the world’s most iconic and endangered marine mammals in the waters off New York, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, fin, humpback, and sei whales. More in-depth information can also be found online at WhalesofNewYork.WCS.org and dcs.whoi.edu, where the near real-time whale detections are displayed and examples of the archived audio recordings are also accessible.

What:

Press Announcement on Historic Acoustic Whale Monitoring Project with Wildlife Conservation Society and Empire Wind

Who:

Siri Espedal Kindem, President, Equinor Wind US

Doreen M. Harris, President and CEO, NYSERDA

Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of the Ocean Giants Program, Wildlife Conservation Society

Scott Lundin, Head of US Permitting and Environmental Affairs, Equinor

When:

Wednesday, September 7th at1:00 PM ET

Where:

New York Aquarium, 602 Surf Ave, Brooklyn NY 11224

Contacts:

Equinor: Lauren Shane, laush@equinor.com, 917 392 4252; Brian Young, bry@equinor.com, 917 915 6461. 

WCS: Max Pulsinelli, 571 218-7601, mpulsinelli@wcs.org

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