By Gregory Wrightstone
Last week the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they had sentenced ESI Energy for a “blatant disregard” of federal wildlife laws of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). In their guilty plea to multiple violations, ESI admitted to the killing of at least 150 bald and golden eagles across 50 of its wind-energy facilities since 2012. Nearly all died of blunt force trauma attributable to being struck by a wind-turbine blade.
The so-called “clean” energy company — a subsidiary of NextEra Energy — was fined $8 million, or about $53,300 per carcass. It turns out that the fine and sentencing was NOT because they killed many dozens of our national symbol, but rather that they killed them without first acquiring the necessary permits that would have legalized the slaughter.
Why would ESI simply fail to do the paperwork that is regularly a part of the process for permitting wind facilities? The answer: money, and a lot of it.
The most egregious project was located in Converse County, Wyoming, known as the Cedar Springs I, II and III wind-power facilities. In the spring of 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) informed the company that Cedar Springs was expected to kill 44 golden eagles and 23 bald eagles over the first five years of operations and recommended that the “proposed wind facilities not be built.” Later that same year the FWS repeated its objection and recommended that the facility, if built, should “implement seasonal curtailment during daylight hours.” Construction continued, and no curtailment was employed.
According to DOJ, the company expedited construction “intended to meet, among other things, power purchase agreement commitments and qualifying deadlines for particular tax credit rates for renewable energy.” The DOJ press release further stated: “ESI and its affiliates received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits for generating electricity from wind power at facilities that it operated, knowing that multiple eagles would be killed and wounded without legal authorization.”
This $8 million settlement appears to be the cost of doing business for ESI in order for them to cash in on the Big Wind green energy scam.
These eagles are much like inattentive drivers texting on their cell phones with their heads down and not looking up, unaware that there is a truck stopped ahead. Like that distracted driver, the birds are looking for prey on the ground and unaware of the looming danger ahead until it is too late.
The legalized slaughter of eagles and other large birds of prey was legitimized under the Obama administration and continues today. At the time, it was estimated that nearly 600,000 birds of all types were killed by the much smaller wind footprint at that time, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles.
Unknown to most citizens is the fact that the FWS has established a “take limit” for wind energy companies to kill bald eagles. This would be similar to a bag limit for a hunter. However, hunters dare not as they are not of the protected class and would be subject to a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment for a felony conviction. FWS regularly imposes fines on oil companies and electric transmission firms for inadvertent deaths of bald eagles, all the while giving its seal of approval to green-induced eagle carnage of a grand scale from turbines.
The FWS bald eagle take limits were revised February 2022 to allow a more than four-fold increase in the legalized slaughter.
Those promoting the flawed idea that a complete transition from fossil fuels to an economy driven solely by wind and solar need to ask themselves, “At what cost?”
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist, Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition in Arlington, Virginia and an expert reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6). He is the best-selling author of Inconvenient Facts: The Science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know.
This commentary was first published at Human Events April 11, 2022
The image below was created by Thiago Hellinger for the CO2 Coalition and may be reproduced with our permission in its entirety with attribution.
California will have take limits for self driving cars
I was so hoping for bag limits on snow boarders running amuck at ski areas.
Never happened. Bummer.
?????????
Honest question.
Won’t self driving cars self destruct before they can be bagged, or is that part of the challenge of the sport?
question.
Won’t self driving cars self destruct before they can be bagged, or is that part of the challenge of the sport?
answer.
Only if they are EVs.
Upvoted you for the snowboarders comment. You might also have noticed those who use skis but no poles and are only interested in jumping off anything, all the time using as little technique and control as possible.
I’m hoping Texas establishes a take limit for bicyclists clogging up busy streets during rush hour… 😉
I asked a police officer once about college students crossing the street outside of the crosswalks. I explained that under any reasonable reading of state fish and game laws, those students qualified as “vermin”, open season. no bag limit. The officer just shook his head, and said sadly, no, they are not supposed to allow it.
Pity.
In Australia, it is illegal to run down a person with an automobile on public roads – unless you are spaced out on drugs of course. However road laws do not apply to privately owned car parks so not sure of the legal ramifications with regard running down people in those.
Needless to say, we have the same issue in Britain.
For those interested, the bird in the link below is a red kite. Ironic, as this is an iconic species in UK wildlife conservation (having died out but reintroduced successfully over the past 30 years or so). Don’t worry, however, Boris and chums are determined to reverse that success with their lovely machines.
https://apis.mail.aol.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-fg9T72-Pti1bHDswtduJmkoykcBPfWAmMMcE4T2At7dJcS21lwIGfwTirUG_p6A5GH4nkLovJSeSm65J69qU1w/messages/@.id==AKK9eBxQecSsYlVDdgOdyCpiLk0/content/parts/@.id==2/thumbnail?appid=aolwebmail&size=400w
In case anyone can’t use the link, it is a photo of a red kite killed by a windmill with the caption “If this bird was covered in oil this photo would be posted everywhere”
I tried to find the photo you tried to link. Couldn’t find it but I did find this.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/05/24/wind-farm-shut-down-following-discovery-of-red-kite-cadavers/
The Red Kite is a bit like Marmite. (You either love them or you hate them)
But the best advertisement for wind turbines was provided by the white-throated needletail…
“The white-throated needletail, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia, was spotted on Harris.
About 30 birdwatchers travelled to the island to see the unusual visitor, which has only been recorded five times in the UK since 1950.
However, they then saw it die after colliding with the wind turbine. Birdwatcher David Campbell, from Surrey, told the BBC Scotland news website that the incident took place late on Wednesday afternoon. Mr Campbell, who is now making his way home to south east England, said: “We just watched the whole thing with dismay.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-23082846
That’s one white-throated needletail less.
Alarmists are very destructive.
I was going to say something about burning villages, but I think not.
It’s sort of like increased inflation. That’s how you know your policies are working.
Black Kites in the Northern Territory, Australia have learnt to spread fire by transporting burning twigs from a fire to another location. They then skirt the fire hunting for the animals running from the fire.
Possession of a single Bald Eagle feather can get you arrested and prosecuted for a felony under the Endangered Species Act. The feather could be part of an heirloom Indian headdress perhaps 100 years old. It makes no difference. As far as the Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned, a violation is a violation. Note that this is not a civil infraction, but a felony crime. We have seen that F+W along with Customs are on the lookout for any sort of incidental or tangential violation at air travel checkpoints. People with old, historical items of all sorts have become rightfully paranoid of air travel with with them for fear of triggering a confiscation and felony prosecution.
On the other hand:
If you want to slaughter Bald Eagles by the hundreds, well that is OK, if you have windmills. Just buy a permit and you are good to go. It is this kind of selective enforcement of the law that severely damages the rule of law and rots out your society from the inside.
Knowing the penalties you state, two years ago I had to slam hard on the
brakes & take the shoulder to avoid hitting a bald eagle that was eating
carrion in my lane. I knew they were “very protected” & imagined myself
being there 2-3 hrs filling out paperwork from both cops & wardens. Since it
was an accident, I was hoping the local tribe could get some of the feathers
in the same way you can butcher the deer you killed.
Sunday night, I drove past a dead deer on the shoulder (a common sight) &
as I got closer, I saw a bald eagle on top of it. If it had flown up into my lane,
I may have hit it. I already slow down 5 mph @ night since I hit a deer ~6 yrs
ago & now have to add bald eagles to my list.
BTW, it’s $100k for one feather!!!
I have commented several times on WATTS about the carnage I personally saw NE of Casper, Wyoming, with dead raptors, including Golden Eagles, and other birds, underneath a line of the large windmills. The CAGW false-Greenie zealots somehow ignore this take-limit carnage. Contrast that with my other experience: while visiting the Pegasus Gold Florida Canyon heap-leach gold mine, in NW Nevada, our meeting was interrupted by the arrival of two NDOW (Nevada Depart Of Wildlife) officers, who were responding to the mine reporting discovery of a dead Meadowlark. The dead Meadowlark, cause of death unknown, was guarded in a refrigerator, and the NDOW officers examined the death site, questioned workers, and took the bird with them for an autopsy (which autopsy was inconclusive). What a difference political alignment makes regarding laws protecting wildlife.
This is a per year take limit? I read this article and the link on the FWS announcement and there is absolutely no information I could find on timeframe. Can anyone help me here?
When it comes to the obvious eyesores, the loss of productive land and the killing of birds bats etc all for a greener, kinder, gentler planet, the old phrase that came out of the fog of the Vietnam war resonates still: [sometimes] you have to burn the village to save the village.
Just to be on the safe side, of course.
“the old phrase that came out of the fog of the Vietnam war”
Let me put this in perspective a little bit: The old phrase that came out of the [anti-war, radical Left, about] the Vietnam war
The radical Left lied back then just like they lie today. The only difference across time is the subject. The radical Left lies about every subject, just to be clear.
The left is, well, the post-modern left. But it’s hardly radical.
My regards to Hanoi Jane.
; )
The Covid vaccine appears to be injuring, and in some cases killing, humans – and that isn’t too high a price for the authorities…..
The Watermelons don’t care about people, why should anyone think they care about birds?
As a young family on vacation in Palm Springs in the 80’s, we drove/hiked up to some San Gorgonio Pass wind turbines. I was appalled at the number of dead birds on the ground. Have never been a fan of bird choppers since…prior to that, I thought they were a great energy harvesting idea.
A school in (I believe) Nottinghamshire, UK had to take down a wind turbine mounted on their building because the students were getting distressed at the heaps of bird and bat carcasses it produced.
They were never a great energy harvesting idea. Intermittent, inconsistent, unpredictable and unreliable ‘harvesting’ of energy is worse than useless.
Glad the additional travesty of the bird carnage changed your opinion, at any rate (no pun intended).
It’s often asserted that house and feral cats kill far more birds than wind turbines… But I’m pretty sure their record against eagles and other migratory birds of prey isn’t very good.
Feral cats kill millions of mammals, so by their logic it’s OK to kill rhinos.
Pretty much. Show me the household cat that can take out a medium sized bird of prey and you’ll see someone who doesn’t have their wildlife permit in order.
Even a Kestrel would be hard for a Savannah cat to take out.
Tabby the house cat vs. a Bald Eagle would be great on pay-per-view.
So much for all the cat lovers.
Around here we have had Bald Eagles for well over a decade.
Seems they hang out at the Quabbin Reservoir in the center of the state. At last census count, there were a dozen productive nests there. Clearly the fishing is great there. In any event, they will cruise all the way into Eastern MA on day trips, and are readily seen hunting. Truly amazing flights, ~50+ miles each way.
We have mated pairs of bald eagles in my county, as well as golden eagles and various other predator birds such as turkey vultures and several species of hawks, never mind the brown treecreepers who decided to set up housekeeping and go after bugs bigger than they are.
Ahem: my cat, Miss Punkin Squawkypants, has presented me with two dead mice this past weekend. Her excuse for the slaughter was two-fold: they squeak so much she can’t sleep at night, and b 🙂 they steal the dry crumblies out of her stash. She has no interest in pursuing birds at all and wishes to remind all who think cats are bird-killers that the rodent population is more likely to be at risk than the avians.
That is all.
My Sweet Pee agrees with you.
Gabby the cat who believes that our household exists only for her comfort would like to disagree. Being an inside cat she watches the feeder outside our dining room window intently, flipping her tail and vocalizing her little chirps of frustration when it’s busy.
As for mice? She leaves their extermination up to me.
It’s always entertaining to read these handwringing, tear jerking cryathons over bald eagle and other bird mortality amongst the anti-wind energy crowd. The same people who never gave a flying fig about bird mortality due to drilling rigs, pipelines running through extremely sensitive nature preserves such as in Alaska and the upper midwest, nor bird mortality caused by simple window strikes on buildings and vehicle strikes on highways, which fantastically outnumber the bird strikes on the handful of wind towers in the US, as compared to the number of oil and gas facilities, highways, and buildings.
“Crocodile tears” is what it’s called when you express fake tears and outrage.
The True Believers apparently don’t pay any attention whatsoever to, you know, FACTs.
Like, the fact that while wind energy installations soared this past decade, so did the bald eagle population. Indeed the latest counts in 2021 by USFWS show that bald eagle populations have quadrupled since 2009.
https://fws.gov/press-release/2021-03/americas-bald-eagle-population-continues-soar
The current estimate of US bald eagles last year was 316 thousand. Most bird species suffer mortality rates due to all causes of anywhere from 20 to 50+% per year. That would be BILLIONS of birds due to all other causes of mortality vs. thousands due to wind turbines – that doesn’t even begin to rise to the noise level of bird mortality data.
Facts are such pesky things, you know, when you’re a True Believer.
Birds! Mammals! So you’re OK with killing rhinos.
If it can be assumed to be intermittent hunting, and asserted to be a clean, green, and renewable hit, then, yes. Perhaps if the weapons are sourced from China, then, absent any sanctions, yes.
How are nature preserves “extremely sensitive”? Can we send them to safe spaces with you and all your friends so they will be happy? Where is your data on all the oil and gas facilities killing birds? The bald eagle population is up, but so is the polar bear population and we constantly have “climate activists” telling us they need protection from bad CO2.
The real hypocrisy is all those Greens who go ballistic if an oil rig kills a
bird but can now look the other way when their technology is doing the same
thing! Can you say double standard? I’m sure you can!!!
Actually, it’s not the same thing, it’s wholesale slaughter!
“nor bird mortality caused by simple window strikes on buildings”
Everybody claims windows and house cats.
I think we all know what would happen if a house cat was stupid enough to take on a big raptor.
What’s for lunch? Take a guess, you stupid cat.
Show me one case of a big raptor which got killed from striking a window. Just one!
Oh, my bad.
Duane does not know what a raptor is.
Right, so let’s just ignore that homicide down the street because after all, 30,000 people die in cars every year….
Clown alert.
Speaking of clowns. Found that crime Biden was guilty of yet?
Figured out what chlorine dioxide is yet, big boi?
Typical leftist illogic, their heroes can’t be accused of any wrongdoing until after they’ve been convicted.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/10/biden-family-scheme-unravels/
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/04/10/hunter-bidens-kickbacks-to-the-big-guy-are-still-turning-up-n461320
So that’s a no. Best you got is a couple of right wing propaganda papers that say he is a bad boy. Wow. Just wow. Maybe next time check your facts before typing… that is if you want to be honest.
His son took payoffs from Russia, China, Ukraine while Oatmeal Brain was VP
Oatmeal Brain flew him around the world on the Air Force 2 to talk business with his “partners”
Oatmeal Brain extorted the Ukrainian gov to drop a criminal corruption investigation into H. Oatmeal (the son)
His son made sure that Oatmeal Brain got his cut of the take, paid the expenses of the family estate
You don’t see anything wrong here—count me not surprised. Demonstrates exactly where your ethics lay.
And you call me a liar and a moron.
All very interesting. I could write you a much longer list of crimes Trump is actually charged with, but none of that changes that fact you shot your mouth off without finding out whether Biden had been convicted of a crime… which as we both know he hasn’t. The real question is, did you now that before typing, which would make you a liar. If not is just makes you stupid. Which one is it?
You obviously have never driven across the US if you think there are a handful of windmills.
And pipelines don’t kill birds. Oil spills are not normal procedure , usually there is some accident or natural disaster.
Windmills kill birds just from operating.
Also birds or prey are usually at the top end of the food chain , its slightly different than losing pigeons.
dwane,
In response to this report of admitted and recorded kills of at least 150 eagles by wind machines owned by a single company, you wrote: “…bird strikes on the handful of wind towers in the US …”.
Handful of wind towers? Come on man!
Now, be careful. Dianne may live on an island with a handful of windmills, and from his experience they constitute all the windmills in the world. Obviously, he’s never seen the wind farms outside of Palm Springs. They may not qualify, as often only a minority are turning. They may just be ugly monuments to stupidity.
Yeah,, duane, facts ARE pesky things. When the nuke reactor up north of me was in working order, the cooling ponds attracted large numbers of big birds like hawks and eagles, because there were salmon in them, AMONG OTHER SPECIES OF FISH SUCH AS LAKE TROUT, BASS, STURGEON, AND PERCH. Lots of people went fishing there, along with the birds.
Duane can’t waste everyone’s time anymore on other sites defending the indefensible LCS, AKA “Little Crappy Ship”, that the USN wasted billions on, now that nine of the embarrassments are being unceremoniously kicked out of the navy. They’re new, they cost nearly 5 billion dollars, yet the Navy wants to unload them as quickly as possible because they are worse than useless. He spent years vituperatively defending them as the jewels of the navy, snarling at anyone who would dare suggest otherwise.
So now Duane has taken up the cause of an LCS-equivalent energy source here. Makes sense. But it is awful to contemplate he wrote his last sentence above, knowing he has been the nasty True Believer who spent years railing against the pesky LCS facts and at anyone who mentioned them.
Would those be the ugly rusting hulks that have deteriorated almost to the point of being unseaworthy in just a few short years? The ones with the guns that they daren’t fire because each round cost a fortune?
I don’t think so. They’re made of aluminum, so there’s no ugly red rust running down the sides. Still, salt water will corrode them. But the problem isn’t that they’ve deteriorated – they were impotent embarrassments from the day they launched.
As for the guns without shells, that would be the Zumwalt class of stealth destroyers. They each have two guns without any shells to fire because the shells cost so much the Navy never bought any. The plan seems to be to remove the guns and replace them with more missiles.
Duane may be the worst human being I have ever heard from in my life.
No kidding
Couldn’t agree more.
https://www.birdspot.co.uk/helping-birds/the-effects-of-oil-spills-on-birds
https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/sparkling-waters-hide-some-lasting-harm-from-2010-oil-spill/
Silly s, once again posts articles that do not back up it’s specious claims.
Besides much alarmism, speculation and “it’s worse that we thought” fantasies, one article cites a scientist:
Silly’s ‘much ado over nothing!’ wailing is noted, with much amusement.
Looks like duane drove by to gaslight us, he’s not responding so I won’t ask him how many tears he shed over birds and drilling rigs and tall buildings in the past. [window strikes?! Blaming oil companies for that??!!] I’ll just say that those “pesky things” he thinks are facts may be STDs. Have you talked to your medical professional? That’s the guy in the white coat who gives you the pills you don’t take.
“Facts are pesky things”. But you did not present a single one. The caribou love that nice warm pipe line.
Looks like part of the permitting process requires the windmills to be inactive or otherwise not operational when the birds are migrating or otherwise present.
The irony seems to be, when Eagles are present in large numbers, it seems to be close prime operational time.
Then why do they need such large “takings” quotas?????
I wish I knew.
It is especially tragic when the birds, some protected or endangered species, are sacrificed by the Climate Change cult—that is, for nothing. CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant.
150 eagles over 50 windfarms over an unknown period of time is not thousands.
and is there any evidence the ‘take limits’ are in any way being reached?
Weren’t you here claiming wind turbines don’t kill birds just a few days ago?
More than just a few days ago. Pretty much on a regular basis.
Now, when confronted with facts, he changes his tune to “It’s no big deal anyway”
It’s the old Clinton Playbook: “It isn’t a crime and even it if was, we didn’t do it, and even if we did, it was so long ago, it doesn’t matter, and even if it does still matter, you’re a racist!”
Sacrifices must be made mister. /sarc
You’re of the same ilk as those in the 1970’s who insisted that DDT was the cause of raptor loss, won the case and got DDT banned. Now, they neither accept responsibility for, nor even mention, how that ban on DDT is the cause of someone in the world dying from malaria every 30 seconds. Literally tens of millions of people have lost their lives to that disease as a direct result of banning DDT, and the perpetrators still refuse to accept that the evidence against DDT was weak and even fabricated through, as often is the case, faulty “research”. You think it just fine for an oil company to be fined $50,000 for a single eagle kill, but have not problem with 150 eagle dying from your sacred “windmill” gods. If 150 are killed now, how many more will be killed when the tens of thousands of additional avian blenders are constructed to satisfy your claim of creating “green energy”? I won’t be here to see it, but I hope your conscience gets to you when, and IF, all those bird choppers end up being installed, killing off, not only our national symbol, but millions upon millions of other birds and bats. Probably not. You’ll just enjoy the solitude of your truly “silent spring”.
The unknown period is ~1 year as in 2016 the Fish & Wildlife Service was
suggesting 4,200. Since the penalty for having only one bald eagle feather
is up to $100k, all Yanks would be horrified to discover the FWS mentioning
a number >100- especially since it’s our sacred national symbol!
https://groups.google.com/g/coyotewisdom/c/ouS5SLjF3QU
I congratulate you Griffo, for exposing the nasty, evil hypocrites that the
Greens really are. They can go ballistic if even one bird is killed by an oil
rig but it’s okay for windfarms to slaughter 150 bald eagles at a time. Boy,
that will endear people even more to your cause! Your question that they
might not even be reaching the maximum limit is the icing on the cake!
This follows a long history of Greens being cold-hearted souls as they fought
hard to ban DDT for inside use, resulting in 30M-60M deaths- mostly young
kids & their pregnant moms- all the while knowing the scientific basis for the
ban was obviously totally flawed! Greens’ willingness to sacrifice others for
their own cause is truly amazing! You’d better hope & pray you don’t get in
the way of their pet cause cuz it could get you canceled, too. With you
“carrying their torch”, it would be doublly horrifying as you helped build the
scaffold they will hang you on! Cheerio!
Griffypoo:
Killing bald eagles is illegal in the first place.
It is incredibly arrogant and egotistical for you Greenies to believe that you are so damn righteous and virtuous that you are entitled to an exemption from the law to begin with. Birds have enough trouble staying alive without people like you adding to their troubles with wind turbines.
If your heads get any bigger, they will explode. It would be quite a mess to have to clean up afterwards.
Since it was only 50 eagles, then it’s okay to kill them with wind turbines?
How many dead eagles per year is an acceptable number?
Griff:
“150 eagles over 50 windfarms over an unknown period of time is not thousands.
and is there any evidence the ‘take limits’ are in any way being reached?”
The article:
“The so-called “clean” energy company — a subsidiary of NextEra Energy — was fined $8 million, or about $53,300 per carcass. It turns out that the fine and sentencing was NOT because they killed many dozens of our national symbol, but rather that they killed them without first acquiring the necessary permits that would have legalized the slaughter.”
In other words, Griff, your “150 eagles over 50 windfarms” is just the kills for which they didn’t have permits.
How many others DID they have permits for?
How many other Green-Wacka-Birds are there that do have permits?
How does killing birds and bats “save the environment”?
This has been known for years and is totally UNACCEPTABLE but nobody cares because electricity is vital for all. Until we “fall out of love” with “renewable” energy this will go on and on and could eventually destroy many species of birds FOR EVER. WELL DONE “RENEWABLE” ENERGY – an extortionate and useless use of land, fishing waters, agricultural land and on and on and on and on……….. ONE NUCLEAR REACTOR COULD REPLACE ALL OF THIS WASTED LAND.
The Green Blight thinks that they can abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. Will the population share their faith and religious (“ethical”) convictions? Time will tell if they can successfully wield the double-edged scalpel.
I’m not a bird, whale or even smelt hugger, but … covering the nation with these fields is more of an existential threat to birds than DDT ever was. And they’ve killed millions of people because of the imaginary threat of DDT to eagles.
I sat in a hearing for the proposed Rock Creek I and II projects a few weeks ago and one of the applicant’s wild life experts testified that in her opinion the project was not a hazard to eagles. The Albany County Conservancy who was a party to the hearing I had ask why the applicant had reduced the buffer for eagle nests from the advisory distance of 2 miles down to one mile when it was established that a turbine had struck a bald eagle 2.5 miles from a nest. The answer was that the data they collected shows that the one mile buffer is adequate — that’s it. The Industrial Siting Council was unmoved by any of this exchange, even though hazards to wildlife is a stipulated topic of their purview, and probably because they rely on the experts at the state game and fish department or the USFWS or the applicants experts — round and round this merry-go-round of responsibility goes.
To have obtained takings permits for all 50 of these plants would have cost the applicant perhaps five or six times as much as paying the fine and admiting to what I think was simply a misdemeanor. All these developers and operators have learned this lesson. The financial incentive is to run naked without a permit, let the birds provide proof testing, then obtain permits for just those plants that have proven to be problematic so far. In the long run this tactic is less costly for them.
Something similar happens about acoustic noise, viewshed, ADLS, and on and on.
By the way, the turbines are one source of hazard, but the feeder transmission lines are another, and may be worse. No one to my knowledge looks much at the proliferation of high voltage tie networks, although some independent fish and wildlife experts do, but they have little standing to testify in these hearings, and perhaps no impact anyway.
Kevin we live in a Renewable Energy Zone in Central West NSW Australia.The protected Wedge Tailed Eagle has been identified as nesting close to one of the proposed wind projects, along with endangered Long Eared Pied Bats and a Barking Owls. The developers simply do not care. These projects are considered State significant, and as such are pretty much rubber stamped. They are proposing 63 7MW turbines for just one of the projects, each at 280m high. These will be dispersed in our valley view a few short kilometres from our newly built home. Originally they planned 3 GW’s of wind and solar in our region, they have recently increased it to 12 GW’s. I’m not dealing well with any of this, but then I’m sure you’re not either.
We built our home here for the proliferation of wildlife and the variety of birds. Hundreds of parrots fly across this valley at first light and then again at the end of day. We have so many different varieties of parrots too, along with water birds and countless other native species.
These greenies consider themselves environmentalists, they are pure evil.
I am sorry to hear of your plight. I personally despise all of this because the approval process and permitting is somewhat farcical, everyone rubber stamps these projects because they believe this is progress at saving the plant — Dunning-Kruger syndrome writ large.
What are you complaining about?
Would you prefer to have an asteroid getting rid of these flying dinosaurs?
Give me a windmill or two any time, I’ll rather have it than a
Chicxulub in my back garden.
Not a nimby me.
I wonder how much those idiots will like it when they are overrun by some really nasty rodent populations that are completely OUT of control. I hear those rodents can chew through steel wire, so those “special” tires won’t work real well.
My next door neighbor’s truck began to malfunction in bizarre ways a couple of weeks ago. He barely managed to get it in to a repair shop. The next day, the shop contacted him and asked “Where do you live?!?”
Turns out some creature or other had set up housekeeping in his engine compartment, and in the process of gathering nesting materials, had almost completely destroyed the truck’s wiring harnesses. The repair bill came to $9,000.
It was undoubtedly rats that were responsible. We spotted one on our deck a few years ago, just before it disappeared underneath, and our neighbor has seen them in and around his tool shed. We put some lethal stuff under out deck, and haven’t seen any more. I just took what we had left of that over to our neighbor.
Its surprising that rats can survive in our area, which is loaded with predators. They do, though, and I imagine their number would be staggering without the predators.
Some rats are too big for cats to want to deal with, tho mine tackled rabbits almost as big as she was.
Another of our neighbors has a black cat that they got from a rescue shelter, and let roam free to take care of mice and voles (which he has done nicely). He’s a beautiful cat, and very entertaining. I was always afraid that the foxes, of which we have many, would get him. One day the cat was lounging on our deck, just watching for birds and squirrels, when the biggest fox I’ve ever seen came ambling though our yard. My heart sank, thinking that this might be it for the cat.
Well, the cat caught sight of that fox, leaped to his feet, and took off like a shot in pursuit. The fox glimpsed him coming, and did the only double-take I’ve ever seen in the animal kingdom, then fled in panic. That cat chased the fox about a thousand feet into our meadow before losing him. I smile every time I see that bad-ass cat!
“[A]re thousands of dead bald eagles too high a price to pay for “clean” energy[?]”
Simple easy answer: Y-E-S.
This demonstrates what happens when the political clout of green energy advocates infects and muddies the waters of bureaucrats’ thinking, and that the latter don’t have the intestinal fortitude or the brains to admit to the idiocy and hypocrisy that they are allowing. It is absolutely ludicrous to have laws protecting birds and then making exceptions to those laws to accommodate these activist special interests.
To top things off, has anyone ever done any study or studies to determine if wind turbines even produce more electricity in their lifetimes than it took to mine the raw materials, manufacture and install them on site? I wonder.
KILL WIND TURBINES, NOT AVIAN WILDLIFE.
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
― Joseph Stalin
The same applies to raptor deaths for the cause of the climate crusades.
Next we’ll have bag limits for electric vehicle manufacturers on how many people are allowed to be burned alive when their lithium batteries catch fire.
I sent several requests to then Secretary Zinke asking him to revoke to allowance for killing eagles etc. from wind farms. Never heard back. Ask my congressman the same never heard back. I fear they may all be in on the CO2 causes warming scam.
Let’s see.
Besides the Raptors there are the bats which don’t even have to come in contact with the blade to be killed.
Then there is the fact that it uneconomical to recycle the blades so most end up in landfills with a some being burned.
Then there is Ultrasound and the emerging evidence that long term exposure is damaging to humans and other mammals.
And then there is, in some cases, the loss of farmable land to the foundations of the masts and the access roads to them.
Then there is the unreliability of their energy generation causing instability in the power grids.
And then there is the fact that the energy they generate is more expensive than the tried and true means already available.
Yep! sounds like a typical leftist “fix” for an imaginary environmental problem,
So permits are given to slaughter the National Bird, a symbol of strength, in the interest of climate change as an excuse for dastardly profits perpetuated by a fraud. As one politician said before being voted out of office, we can do anything we want!
I can imagine what would happen to some small time oil company if a dead Bald Eagle was found in an unscreened open top salt water tank.
Windmills, drones, helicopters, hobby rocketry, War, Aircraft, dogs, people hunting geese are all issues for raptors. This post is absurdly inverse to the garden variety climate change propaganda. The hills around Eastern PA are full of Falcons, so many I see one every time I turn my head. What is missing are Pidgeon’s and Starlings which used to plagues us and song birds have become a rare sight. The carnage can be witnessed at the intersection on top of the hill where many have witness Falcons swooping in a foot above the pavement then straight up to grab doves in mid-air. DDT is long gone and now Falcons of become the new overly populated pest bird. Let’s stick with economics and data. The fact that windmills without a tax credit may or may not be cost effective is an issue. Are they or are they not cost effective? .The PTC is a federal subsidy that pays wind farm owners $23 per megawatt-hour through the first ten years of a turbine’s operation. Data about abandoned wind farms is hard to find. For instance, California once had 14.000 now they have less than 6,000. None of data I have found looks reliable. I am sure there is someone on WUWT that has access to reliable wind turbine data.
I’m not a bird expert, but to me it seems highly unlikely that the population of a large bird such as the bald eagle that probably doesn’t reach sexual maturity until age 4 or 5 and would only fledge 2 or 3 chicks per year max. could increase by over 400% in 10 years as the figures from FWS claim.
I suspect they’ve adjusted/made up the population estimates for 2019 in order to try and justify a massive increase in permitted take.
Always the first thing the marxists go after is numbers. Always numbers (votes are numbers).
Of all the horrible “solutions” to a non-existant problem, wind power is the absolute worst. They certainly live up to the moniker “Ruinables”. I suspect many communities who were suckered in by Big Wind now regret their deal with the Devil. Now they’re stuck with the damn things.
Union Carbide: you can do that?
So that’s where they keep the Lost Ark, in cold storage with evidence rooms of energy policy casualties. It’s too bad Obama is not kept there with them.
Is there any explanation in the more than four fold increase in Bald Eagle numbers between 2009 and 2019. Seems a remarkable recovery.
As a percentage the 2019 take is marginally lower.
It is still amazing that the hard line environmentalist who ignore this outcome pullout all stops to halt developments with far less impacts.
It would be interesting to know how many seabirds are killed by turbines. Most of the bodies, of course would be washed away, so no effects on wildife at all.
Every indoor fan has a wireframe or plastic shield to prevent hands, especially those of children, from coming into contact with the blades.
While I realize such a shield would not be free, and would create a small (de minimus?) reduction of power, what are the costs? I have read a fair bit about windmills, and bird kills, and do not recall a single discussion of this issue.
Vertical axis turbines probably cause a lot less harm, presenting a more obvious silhouette. But they may still not help with bird species that spend their lives looking down. Although presumably too the maximum speed obtained would be lower for these types.
Wind turbines today commonly have 100 m (328 ft) diameter rotors, and the newest Vestas have 172 m (564 ft) rotors. Chicken wire enough for a screen on both sides of a 100 m rotor would weigh 6,900 lb, and for a a172 m rotor it would weigh 20,400 lb. That’s just the light weight part. One would need a shroud somewhat larger in diameter than the rotor, and longer than the maximum rotor thickness, to support the mesh. It can’t be made of “plastic”, though a composite would work. For the largest turbine, even a composite shroud would weigh over 100,000 pounds. The shroud would have to be mounted to the nacelle by struts, which would be quite massive, and the shroud would need spider struts to maintain roundness and to support the wire mesh.
All of this would add at least 70 (more likely 100) tons to the very top of the wind turbine. As an engineer, I call the idea a non-starter.
The drawing is from a photo of a real person and a real bird…
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2021/05/05/green-new-death-no-to-the-whirlwinds-they-kill-our-birds-of-prey/
😢
Wind turbines are not now nor ever will be “clean energy”.
and they’re ugly as sin.
Not to mention the effects of low frequency noise.
The eagles themselves are to blame for their poor choice of feather shampoo.
Furthermore, as Griff would say,
“but cats 🐈 “.
Hi, Mr. Salmon,
The second winning non-scientist contest essay (by David Hawkins), the 4th winner, was never published. I have been watching vigilantly. Have you seen it?
After his essay was published, Anthony told us that all the rest of the entries would be published:
In addition to the two winning essays in each category posted here, I will publish ALL of the essays over the coming weeks. We don’t want the hard work of our contestants to go unnoticed and un-appreciated.
(https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/04/wuwt-contest-winners-announced/ ).
I haven’t seen yours published. Was it?
Looking forward to reading yours and all the rest.
By the way, when I expressed concern about the first 3 published contest winners not responding at all to any of the comments about their essays, David Hawkins responded to me and said that he looked forward to doing that when his essay is published.
Hope all is well with you,
Janice
It is not just eagles that are getting slaughtered.
Of course we all know that.
I was just reading about a planned installation of gigantic turbines 15 miles offshore of Martha’s Vinyard.
The race to roll out ‘super-sized’ wind turbines is on (msn.com)
These things are over 260 meters (853″) tall, and have blades that over 100 meters long, so the rotor diameter is over 200 meters.
There are 4 major flyways used by migratory birds that cross the United States.
Perhaps the most important one is the Atlantic Flyway.
I think I do not have to say much more, except to point out that a huge number and variety of birds use this route every year…twice.
According to Audubon, about 500 bird species use the Atlantic Flyway.
Bird Migration: Birds of the Atlantic Flyway (perkypet.com)
“Some migrating birds, including the duck-like Eider and the Snowy Owl, can fly all the way to Greenland, the massive island nation East of Canada.
”
Feeder birds using the flyway include:
“The Atlantic Flyway is a major north-south flyway for migratory birds in North America. The route starts in Greenland, follows the coast of North America to South America and the Caribbean. Migratory birds travel this route every year. This route does not have mountains to block the path, and has good sources of water, food and cover over it’s entire length. The Atlantic Flyway is the most densely populated and intensively developed of the four flyways. The other flyways include the Central, the Pacific and the Mississippi. According to Audubon, about 500 bird species use the Atlantic Flyway.
Spring migration occurs in a mass movement. It takes place over a shorter period of time than the fall migration since birds are anxious to reach their breeding grounds and begin mating. From March until May you can see flocks making their way North all across the United States. Along the Flyway there are many key sites that migratory birds use to breed, feed or rest. Among the sites listed is the Cape Cod National Seashore. Migratory birds can be seen along the 40 miles of public beach and sand dunes.”
Bird Migration In The Atlantic Flyway | Cape Wildlife Center
How the hell are they allowed to put these things along this route?
Meanwhile…..
WSJOil Industry Objects to Fees, Permits to Mitigate Accidental Bird KillingsMeasures being considered could include a permit process for new skyscrapers, power lines, wind turbines and other structures that pose hazards to birds…
The measures being considered could include a permit process for new skyscrapers, power lines, wind turbines and other structures that birds fly into, often with fatal results. Businesses that secure a permit would limit exposure to steep fines for inadvertent bird killings under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Fish and Wildlife officials are also considering assessing a conservation fee as part of that permit process, with the money going to help mitigate habitat loss that has contributed to declining bird populations.
The agency said the rules are needed to protect declining populations of migratory birds, noting that nearly 10% of roughly 1,100 species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act are threatened or endangered.
…
Wind turbines are estimated to kill between 140,000 and 500,000 birds a year, according to Fish and Wildlife, and a major expansion of those turbines could push bird deaths over 1 million annually, wildlife researchers have estimated.
Fish and Wildlife has given broad outlines of what a permit system might entail, and expects to release a formal proposal this summer for public comment. Officials say they haven’t made any decisions on who would be required to get permits and how much they will cost.
The permitting proposal reflects middle ground in the back and forth between the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations.
…
Violators of the rarely enforced law face up to $15,000 in fines and up to six months in prison for each killed bird.
Duke Energy Corp., whose subsidiary was fined $1 million in 2013 after dozens of birds died at a wind-turbine project in Wyoming, said it supports the new rule-making effort.
<Rarely enforced unless you are a political opponent of Mr. Biden, like Harold Hamm.>
Moma Bald Eagle feeding her three eaglets then sees a threat. Probably another bird of prey. Screeches a continual warning spreading her wings to protect her brood. Dad returns with a small fish and then departs, probably to run off the potential threat.
https://youtu.be/c2WgFp5VMZg