Avian Mortality: Industrial Wind in Ecological Trouble

“Wind projects are known to kill eagles, and climate extremists in the Biden admin still greenlit scores of these projects. @Interior is enforcing the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities!” ( – Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, X)

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, posted a memorandum back in August calling on the agency to ensure compliance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, “to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities!”

This is long overdue threat to major wind projects that have been living a lie. After all, it was the Los Angeles director of the Sierra Club who coined the term “Cuisinarts of the Air” to capture the bird-chopping nature of industrial blades to the most treasured/protected birds of prey.

The “avian mortality” problem has a long history. May the new initiative finally (!) get to the bottom of things.

Government Neglect

The Burgum/DOI memorandum is significant given the failure of the Fish and Wildlife Service to act on the documented killing of Golden and Bald Eagles by industrial wind. The dodge of estimating electrocutions from power poles as a “mitigation” strategy in this area (see David Wojick’s analysis, below) is unacceptable.

North American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW) keenly awaits the new DOI priority. It is well known that the ability to “mitigate” eagle deaths include a lack of suitable and rigorous testing; incomplete implementation; limited technology; ignored interacting factors; site specific requirements; lack of collaboration.  Add: developer led counting and methodology; use of less bird occupied testing sites; natural flow of natural processes where scavenging replaces/negates counting; massive level obfuscation including reference points to cats and cars and windows.

The actual numbers of kills are completely unknown. ABC (American Bird Conservancy) estimates some years ago (2021 article), 880 bats and 573,000 birds dead. Actual numbers, again years ago, referencing the Spanish Ornithological Society numbers, a valid coordinate to the USA, is between 13 and 31 million annually. Then add electrocution.

In a 2014 study, researchers estimated that 25.5 million birds are killed each year due to collisions with powerlines, and another 5.6 million are killed by electrocutions. Therefore, powerlines built exclusively to connect new wind facilities to the existing energy grid result in additional bird mortalities that should be factored in to the total toll in birds associated with wind energy development.

David Wojick of CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) has penned several succinct assessments of the problem. “Federal regulators concluded that the golden eagle population cannot survive increased kills from human activity,” he noted, “and also determined that wind turbines substantially increase eagle deaths.”

The feds then offered a solution only a bureaucrat could love: Don’t protect the eagles from turbine strikes, but “offset” their deaths by reducing electrocutions from power poles. Government then underestimated the number of power poles that would need to be made “safe” by a factor of as much as 241 and failed to save any meaningful number of eagles. See link for full report.  See here for executive summary.

Time for Action

NA-PAW expresses the hope that Secretary Burgum’s request to FWS is diligently applied, that no new wind factory permits are allowed; and retroactive closures of non-compliant wind factories are administered post haste.

Non-compliant yardsticks must be rejected. After-the-fact counts of dead birds and bats (in this case protected species, Golden and Bald Eagles) is not nearly enough. The corollary idea that reducing related power pole deaths can in some way “mitigate” wind turbine deaths is not credible.

NOTE: Mr. Wojick has not had a reply from his numerous emails to FWS.

CONTACTS:

Sherri Lange, CEO North American Platform Against Wind Power, Great Lakes Wind Truth; Vice President Canada, Save the Eagles International” Advisory Board Member, All About Energy

www.na-paw.org www.greatlakeswindtruth.org www.allaboutenergy.org

David Wojick dwojick@craigellachie.us

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent policy analyst and senior advisor to CFACT. As a civil engineer with a Ph.D. in logic and analytic philosophy of science, he brings a unique perspective to complex policy issues. He specializes in science and technology intensive issues, especially in energy and environment. As a cognitive scientist he also does basic research on the structure and dynamics of complex issues and reasoning. This research informs his policy analyses. He has written hundreds of analytical articles. Many recent examples can be found at https://www.cfact.org/author/dwojick/ Often working as a consultant on understanding complex issues, Dr. Wojick’s numerous clients have included think tanks, trade associations, businesses and government agencies. Examples range from CFACT to the Chief of Naval Research and the Energy Department’s Office of Science. He has served on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and the staff of the Naval Research Laboratory. He is available for confidential consulting, research and writing.

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Source: https://www.masterresource.org/cuisinarts-of-the-air/avian-mortality-wind-power-ecological-trouble/