By David Wojick
A new lawsuit could finally end the secrecy surrounding wind turbines killing eagles. Wyoming’s Albany County Conservancy (ACC) is suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for failing to provide the mandatory eagle kill reports for three big wind facilities.
This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case. ACC made a proper FOIA request. Five
months later FWS said they had over a thousand responsive document but ACC could only see a small fraction.
Since ACC is after total kills this fraction is useless. Moreover the reason FWS gave for withholding most of the kill records looks to be invalid. So ACC is asking the Court to require FWS to cough up the kills.
The introduction to ACC’s Complaint is very clear so rather than tell you what it says, here it is:
“1. This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or the Act), 5 U.S.C. § 552, seeking to compel Defendants U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to comply with their statutory obligation to disclose nonexempt information concerning the mortality and injury of legally protected eagles at three major wind energy projects located in Carbon County, Wyoming.
Understanding the ecological impacts of the emerging and rapidly proliferating wind energy sector is imperative to Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy, which strives to protect the rugged Western landscapes of Wyoming and the sensitive wildlife that call it home. Disclosure of the requested information is particularly warranted here since it concerns the otherwise illegal take of iconic, federally protected species—Bald and Golden eagles—and because collecting this information is a necessary condition of the permits that exempt these energy projects from incidental take liability under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 668-668d.
2. Plaintiff Albany County Conservancy (the Conservancy) submitted its FOIA request on October 11, 2024. Defendants issued a final response on March 17, 2025, releasing only 256 pages while simultaneously withholding 910 pages in full under FOIA Exemption 4 without adequate justification, foreseeable-harm analysis, record description, or the segregability review required by law.
3. Defendants also failed to disclose entire categories of records—including mortality reports, correspondence, and known eagle-take incident submissions—despite Plaintiff’s knowledge that such records exist within FWS’s possession.
4. Defendants’ obfuscation and the lack of any coherent justification for withholding this information strongly suggests that Defendants have something to hide. It may well be that eagle mortality stemming from these projects is far outpacing predictions, or FWS may be asleep at the switch. Either way, under FOIA, the public has a right to know. This is especially true where there may be recurring violations of federal wildlife law (i.e., BGEPA).”
The FOIA exemption that FWS cites is for confidential business information. No doubt the wind facilities do not want the public know how many eagle deaths they are reporting but that does not make it confidential business information. Thus the suit looks promising.
I have written at length about the absurd Federal secrecy that surrounds wind turbines killing eagles. See my report “Time for FWS to Stop Wind Power Eagle-Kill Permits” here.
ACC has a compelling reason for wanting this kill data. There was an elaborate Wyoming tagging study that found wind turbines killing more Golden Eagles than all other human causes combined.
That finding is very different from the assumptions made in the FWS eagle-kill permitting program. FWS has ignored this dynamite finding. Thus the requested kill data might call the entire national permitting program into question.
Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this vital litigation proceeds.
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Time for this one again:
The number of our flying friends killed in Wyoming by wind turbines has to be a staggering number. I have replied here several times about an early Monday morning pass under a line of the windmills, and saw a Golden Eagle, several hawks, a buzzard, and a lot of other birds. Then the clean-up crew arrived.
Did you take pictures?
Steve, I took pictures and wrote contemporary notes. I may still have them in storage. After I considered the cooperation of Wyoming with this project I didn’t file a report I wrote, because we had an insitu leach uranium project passing through the area and we were warned about the needed permits. Corruption, anyone?
That eagles are killed is not in question. The issues are about the number killed compared to the Eagle-kill permits and the efficacy of electrocution offsetting.
How many eagle kill permits do mining companies get?
Condor Cuisinarts – any other person that killed eagles would be in prison for life – but since it is a favored “progressive” aka communist, industry crickets from the government
Raptor Rippers, Eagle Eviscerators, Perigrine Pureé, hawk spots, kite smites, osprey sprays, and fouled owls.
Insect crushing, bird slicing, bat chopping eco-crucifixes.
Do they kill mosquitos? If so I want one in my back yard.
Get one to emit CO2, and it will.
It remains clear that any justification for continued subsidy support for wind turbines, with taxpayer funds, that taxpayers should NOT be made aware that their tax dollars are financially supporting the fatalities of those majestic Bald Eagles by those wind turbines !!
Story tip
The Dept of War and Trump just killed off offshore wind permanently, being a national security risk for radar. That deserves a new holiday.
I thought only the Congress could make permanent laws.
Financially permanent that is.
Three years in politics is an eternity.
“Here at Planet Climate Fitness, it’s our way or the highway”.
Good work by the ACC and the author!
And other birds?
No, unfortunately FWS ruled that accidental killing of all other birds by wind turbines does not require a permit. Only the Eagle Protection Act was so explicit they could not ignore it.
In the beginning, Environmental groups gained influence because common folks could see for themselves that serious pollution was worse than jobs lost, times were prosperous in the 1950-60s. Now Enviro groups must HIDE bird kills because they know common folks would rise up to stop wind power. They know it!
Silent Spring 2: The Killing Fields
Who knew tax credits could be so lethal.
Story tip
Don’t think the temperature has changed enough from the beginning of the industrial revolution? Then just move the baseline to include the end of the Little Ice Age:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/15/climate/glosat-global-temperature-data
Why is there some much worry over global warming? Warm sunny days are nice and the living is easy, but cold winters are real trouble makers and dangerous.
Yesterday in Fort St. John, B.C., the accumulated snowfall record was broken (67 cm so far) and temperatures plunged to -40° to -30° C. Fort St. John is the main natural gas processor for raw gas.
We are in the coldest December in 20 years and had the first December snowfall since 2017.
Maryland, D.C., Virginia.
Indeed. We have had several successive days of 60 degrees or so here in SLC, though we do need to get some of that white stuff.
Trump needs to order production of the information. Seems to be something he’d enjoy doing. Does he know?
He won’t know unless some trusted aid tells him about it.
Interior is supposedly doing a study of the whole eagle-kill issue but so far no action. This is why I am focused on it.
There was a great deal of similar concern with road kill, maybe started with interstates. Just saw a buzzard squashed, mostly feathers, whose populations seem more than adequate. While some might learn, genetically or otherwise, turtles and especially migratory routes of animals are still at risk and there has been some of these helped. First windmills were many decades ago where we should have clearly understood them and my impression is that most became fossils but persisted in a few places that readers here must know more about. There ought to be a long database.
Some states, like Texas, haven’t helped, including drivers, with speed limits of 75mph at night, some on two lane roads. Our US culture is moving too fast.
Main reason I no longer drive after dark is the number of critters that live along the narrow FM I live off of. Enough of a problem during daylight hours, but at least both they and I have a chance to avoid meeting.
I managed to miss a deer on my early morning commute about 2 weeks ago.
Cleared it by mere inches. Did not see it on the side of the road and did not know it was there until my headlight illuminated her.
Eagle kills are the tip of the iceberg.
Sadly the other birds are not “protected”. The killing fields must be demolished
Most dead eagles are eaten by ground predators within one or two days, thus never reported.
In Vermont, when I put out quite a lot of feed for deer and bears, the next morning all is gone as if vacuumed up.
I put out a whole chicken, bones and all, next day nothing is left.
The left’s explanation, as usual: “We had to destroy (the environment, democracy, the economy) in order to save it”…
I don’t see the problem here. If this is a legitimate and serious request Trump should call a cabinet meeting and ask the Interior Department head if the USFW is withholding FOIA materials. If the answer is yes ask why. If there is no proper reason Trump orders Interior to comply. If he won’t hand him a pink slip and order the second in command to comply and so on. If the head of Interior complies but the head of USFW refuses Interior will pink slip the head of USFW and the second in command at USFW will be ordered to comply and so on. Come to work with a stack of pink slips.
Yes!
And threaten any recalcitrant bureaucrats with transfer to a job shuffling papers in some basement, say, in “fly-over country”.
[For non-US readers: said bureaucrats are hard fire (pink slip) due to civil service protections + unions, and “fly-over country” is ~ central US, ie not east or west coasts.]
You are far too kind to them I would reassign them to delivery, pickup and maintenance of portable outhouses. I guess that could be considered paper work.
In the Arctic Circle.
not looking for down votes, but its the golden eagle that is getting chopped up by the windmills. the picture in the post is a bald eagle with lives near water since the food is fish are largely unaffected by the windmills.
Yes. It is a bald eagle and I safely assume your information is correct about habitat, etc.
However, we do not know how affected that species is due to the withholding of the kill information. It could turn out you are correct, that the bald eagle is largely unaffected and kills complies with the take limits. On the other hand, without the data we do not know and it could be excessive.
David, thank you for exposing the evil doers
It was Barack Hussein Obama who approved the kill rates of American Eagles by wind mills, some of them located in their migration and hunting grounds