Fact Check: Trump's claim that wind turbines kill whales

In September 2023, Donald Trump told a rally in South Carolina that whales were dying because of offshore wind turbines. Nearly two years later, he repeated the claim, but this time at a press conference at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.

From calling windmills ‘the worst form of energy’ to saying they ‘drive whales loco,’ the President’s comments have sparked renewed scrutiny of the link between wind power and marine life. With videos of both speeches circulating widely, marine scientists and federal agencies have responded to the claims with data, post-mortems, and a firm conclusion.

Trump’s remark on windmills and sea life

On 25 September 2023, during a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump said:

[Windmills] are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before.

He claimed the windmills used to generate electricity are ‘driving the whales crazy’, and added that ‘only one such whale’ was killed off the coast of South Caroline in the last ‘50 years.’

The speech was widely circulated online, with a clip of it amassing over nine million views on social media platforms. The statement coincided with an uptick in political calls to pause offshore wind development along the US east coast.

On 27 July 2025, speaking from his Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire, shortly after the nearby Kirk Hill wind farm began generating energy, Trump resumed his attack on wind power. In an unprompted tirade at a press conference announcing a trade deal with the European Union, he said:

It is the worst form of energy, the most expensive form of energy, but windmills should not be allowed.

He added that the whales are also driving ‘loco.’

Fact-check: Are windmills really the reason whales are dying?

According to a BBC fact-check, there is no scientific evidence linking offshore wind turbines to whale deaths.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 208 humpback whales had been stranded along the US east coast between 2016 and 2023. The agency declared the situation an ‘unusual mortality event’ in 2017. In 2023 alone, 33 humpback whale strandings were recorded—one of the highest yearly figures in the past decade.

Contrary to Trump’s claim that South Carolina had only seen one whale death in 50 years, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources recorded at least seven humpback whale strandings in the state since 1993.

Post-mortem examinations conducted by NOAA on around 90 of the whales revealed that 40% of deaths were due to human interaction—either entanglement in fishing gear or vessel strikes. Other identified causes included organ damage from parasites and starvation. Some carcasses were too decomposed for a definitive conclusion.

The Guardian cited NOAA’s official position that ‘there are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.’

It acknowledged that geophysical surveys used during early wind farm development can temporarily disturb marine mammals, but noted they are far smaller in scale than those used in oil and gas exploration.

The UK, home to four of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, has reported no whale strandings conclusively linked to wind energy infrastructure.

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Sources used:

BBC: Fact-checking Donald Trump's claim that wind turbines kill whales

The Guardian: Tilting at windmills? Trump’s claims about turbines fact-checked