“You have a certain place in the Massachusetts area that over the last 20 years had one or two whales wash ashore. And over the last short period of time, they had 18, okay, 'cause it's driving them loco, it's driving them crazy.”

Bilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Scotland

The federal scientists who actually investigate whale deaths have found the opposite. NOAA Fisheries states there is "no evidence" and "no specific links" between offshore wind development and whale mortality, a conclusion shared by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. There is no scientific basis whatsoever for the claim that turbines are killing whales.

The real killers are documented: NOAA's investigation of the ongoing humpback Unusual Mortality Event (running since 2016) found that of the whales examined with a determinable cause of death, about 45 percent showed evidence of human interaction, vessel strikes or entanglement in fishing gear. A peer-reviewed 2024 study identified ship strikes, worsened by shifting whale distribution into busy shipping lanes, as a leading driver. Wind turbines appear nowhere in the forensic record.

The timeline alone disproves the claim: the humpback die-off began in 2016, years before any large-scale offshore wind construction off the U.S. East Coast. Most of the wind "activity" Trump blames consisted of quiet survey work, which NOAA says cannot cause whale deaths. The talking point has been used to justify halting offshore wind projects, a policy goal dressed up as concern for marine mammals it does nothing to protect. "To date, no whale deaths have been attributed to offshore wind activities." — NOAA Fisheries, Frequent Questions—Offshore Wind and Whales