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1/21/2024 10:14:23 PM

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Section 5: States
Subject: Offshore Wind meeting Saturday Msg# 1197764

From:

Tom Hemmick Forum Leader

Joined 7/21/2005

To: All

Perhaps crab eaters here will be concerned with a report from Scotland's Heriot-Watt University. Their studies indicate the electromagnetic fields from undersea cables bringing power ashore would be impacting their local crab populations.

Underwater cables stop crabs in their tracks Click Here

Dr. Alastair Lyndon, from Heriot-Watt University, said: “Underwater cables emit an electromagnetic field. When it’s at a strength of 500 microTeslas and above, which is about five percent of the strength of a fridge door magnet, the crabs seem to be attracted to it and just sit still."

Consequences from the changes in the crabs' behavior include: less foraging for food, less seeking a mate, & changes in their blood chemistry, making them more susceptible to bacterial infection.

Those brown crabs are the UK’s second most valuable crustacean catch, and the most valuable inshore catch.-- not very different than the blue crabs here. Seems the local folks could be quite angry if our blue crabs are impacted.

For reference, the above message is a reply to a message where:
I wouldn't call it speculation.

Scientists at the UK's University of St Andrews have reported their studies of how the man-made noise from sonar caused the whales to stop foraging (i.e. feeding). Seems they confuse sonar with threats from killer whale species in all four species of whale they studied—beaked northern bottlenose, humpback, sperm and long-finned pilot whales.

That St. Andrews study meshes well with Shellenberger's recordings and measurements of sonar in use by a wind turbine vessel mapping the sea bed for a wind project. Fleeing in a panic makes the whales vulnerable to beaching, or being struck by boat traffic.

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