EAGLES AND WINDFARMS
ONE MILLION WIND TURBINES WORLDWIDE WILL MEAN THE END FOR MANY EAGLE POPULATIONS.
In California, at the large windfarm of Altamont Pass, 2,300 golden eagles are estimated to have been killed over 20 years. And contrary to what windfarm developers and the RSPB have been claiming, Altamont Pass is not an exception. News of eagles being struck by turbine blades are now coming in from around the world.
(imagen omitida)
Above: golden eagle´ s head, decapitated by a rotor blade at a windfarm in Aragon, Spain. Courtesy of El Sekano - http://blog.sekano.org
The picture may be found at the end of the page, here: http://blog.sekano.org/index.php? s=aguila+real&searchbutton=Go%21
Raptors are prone to being struck by wind turbines, for a variety of reasons:
1) They make use of the wind for soaring and gliding, saving precious energy. This takes them to places that are windy even when most of the land is without wind: ridges, hilltops and mountain slopes, where declivity winds give them the required lift. These are precisely the places chosen by windfarm developers to install their ware, for the same reasons.
2) They are attracted by mice, rabbits, and other small mammals that proliferate on windfarm grounds. Freshly-upturned topsoil makes for easy burrowing around the turbines´ concrete bases, and cleared woodlands normally turn into grasslands - i.e. rodent habitat. This abundance of prey attracts raptors.
3) When their eyes focus on prey, they don´t pay much attention to perceived-to-be harmless mechanical contraptions.
4) And when they do, they are fooled by the slow-moving appearance of the blades: little do they realise that their tips can travel 100 metres in little over 1 second (1). Besides, they don´t always see those deadly blade tips, coming as they do from above their heads, or from under their bellies, at speeds up to 300 kph (1).
GOLDEN EAGLES (GE´s):
- It is estimated that 2,300 golden eagles have been killed so far by the large windfarm at Altamont Pass, California (2).
- GE´s are also being killed by windfarms in Navarre, Spain (Lekuona report, Department of the Environment, Government of Navarre, 2001). (3)
- They are being killed by windfarms in Aragon, Spain, according to various monitoring reports collected by the Department of the Environment, Government of Aragon. The picture of a GE decapitated by a turbine blade in that Spanish province is shown at the beginning of this paper.
More pictures: SAVE-THE-EAGLES
- They are being killed by windfarms in the province of Soria, Spain . Two carcasses were found in 2006, according to monitoring reports.
- They are being killed by windfarms in the province of Albacete, Spain : a carcass was found at the Bonete windfarm, according to a complaint registered with SEPRONA, the environmental law enforcement agency. (8)
- Golden eagles are being killed in Sweden : I was advised of a carcass found at the Nasudden windfarm. See "Sweden" in the next section on white-tailed eagles.
- GE´s are being killed in the State of New Mexico, USA.
NEW MEXICO (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/BIRD_MORTALITY/2_eagles_killed_New_Mexico.doc)
- GE kills in Scotland : various eagles happen to have disappeared at or near Scottish windfarms. But officially, none of them was killed by a turbine. Eagles have vanished from the Beinn Ghlas area in Argyll, for instance, since a windfarm was built on their breeding territory (6). At another windfarm in the same County, that of Beinn an Tuirc, no successful eagle reproduction occurred since the windfarm was built. And it was leaked that an eagle had "disappeared" in late summer of 2006. (7)
Scientific carcass searches have not been conducted in Argyll, nor at any other windfarm in Scotland for that matter. Most European countries do it, but not Scotland. The authorities do not want to know whether or not windfarms harm Scottish wildlife. They want to believe that windfarms and eagles can live together, even if they have to put blinkers on. And here lies the explanation for the alleged lack of eagle collisions north of the border : we don´t look, so we don´t find.
The Scottish government is determined to forge ahead with windfarms sited on eagle ranges, including those within Important Bird Areas and Special Protection Areas. This violates European legislation, but the European Commission appears to be turning a blind eye - politics oblige. The reputation of the EU is at stake : is it governed by the rule of law, or is it law for the poor, and laxism for rich windpower companies ?
Avian impact assessments produced by consultants to windfarm developers predict the death of 15 eagles here, 50 eagles there, 165 there, etc... but Scottish authorities won´t perform a cumulative impact study. They would be embarrassed to admit that the Scottish eagle population won´t survive such an onslaught.
Windfarms to wipe out Scottish eagles
There are 400 - 500 windfarm projects in the pipeline for that small country, whose scenic landscape is the main attraction for tourists. And, of course, eagles and ospreys are part of the excitement for the visitors. But it is clear that wildlife conservation and protection of the landscape have taken a back seat to money in devolution-Scotland.
RSPB management ( Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ) keep repeating that windfarms should be sited "appropriately", but normally fail to act when they are not. They are staunch supporters of windfarms, as indicated in their policy statements. Meanwhile, Scottish & Southern Energy is selling "RSPB Energy" to consumers, a clear conflict of interest.
RSPB-Energy
WHITE-TAILED SEA EAGLES (WTE´s):
- WTE´s are being killed in Germany: 32 of them, as reported by the Brandenburg State Bird Conservation Centre as at Sept. 1st, 2008. Actual mortality is thought to be higher, because carcasses tend to disappear due to scavengers, windfarm employees, collectors and traffickers*. Besides, little scientific monitoring is being carried out; and it is possible that not every "national" find has been reported to this "provincial" government. The federal government itself does not keep a record. See:
BRANDENBURG STATISTICS (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/BIRD_MORTALITY/casual_windfarm_bird_mortality_record---Gerrmany.pdf)
Many other species may be found on this record .
Note : due to technical difficulties, I could not post the latest record on the Net as yet : I will send it upon request.
* Eagle parts - talons, skulls and feathers - are being traded on the black market.
- WTE´s are being killed in Sweden: 3 kills have been reported to me by a distinguished ornithologist, along with that of the golden eagle ( see above ). His email is available upon request, but the picture he sent is available here:
WTE-SWEDEN (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/PHOTOS/BIRDS_KILLED_BY_WINDFARMS/Adult_white-tailed_eagle_killed_windturbine_Sweden.jpg)
One email was sent to me, by chance, but how many other kills occurred over the years? Like so many other bird societies, the Swedish ornithological society is not to be relied upon for releasing information detrimental to windfarms. It is symptomatic of a sad state of affairs, where conflicts of interest keep bird societies from speaking up.
- WTE´s are being killed in Japan: an article from the Sierra Club alerted me to the death of 3 of them. Having contacted the source of the information, I was told that they probably were only a "camel´ s nose" (tip of the iceberg), and that there would be many more as a windfarm was being built on their migration stop-over point, the Soya Peninsula:
JAPAN (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/BIRD_MORTALITY/Japan_3_eagles_killed_in_2004.txt)
In 2006, another article puts the number of dead WTE´s found (and reported) under wind turbines in Japan at 5.
5 eagles killed
On January 4, 2007, a new article puts the total at 6, plus one osprey.
6 eagles killed
An article written by scientists mentions 7 WTE windfarm victims on Hokkaido between February 2004 and January 2007 (12).
In September 2008, I was advised by a Japanese biologist that a total of 13 carcasses of WTE´s hacked by wind turbine blades had passed through his laboratory. By law, all such victims must be sent to him. He sent me pictures, which I reproduce here : Japan kills (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/eolica/PHOTOS/BIRDS_KILLED_BY_WINDFARMS/Japan_sea_eagles_killed.JPG)
- WTE´s are being killed in Norway: 9 carcasses were found over 10 months at the Smola windfarm. The RSPB put out a press release on this in June 2006:
RSPB (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/BIRD_MORTALITY/eagles_killed_in_Norway.rtf)
The Society normally keep silent about such occurrences (they did anyway for most of the other bird-kill evidence I have been reporting over the years) - so strong is their interest in windfarms. But, in this case, pressure was put on them through discussions of the Smola event in ornithology forums (4).
Since then, the RSPB has been involved in the monitoring of the Smola windfarm, as it is a useful precedent for Scotland, where many windfarms will be installed where WTE´s fly. But after a whole year of monitoring, nothing transpired. The public is being kept in the dark. Some would call it a cover-up, for we were able to find out from Norwegian ornithologists that the toll was now up to 14 WTE´s.(9)
Is RSPB management naive enough to think that they can keep this information to themselves forever ? The result is a tremendous blow to their credibility as a bird society.
(imagen omitida)
Above: one of the white-tailed sea eagles killed by the Smola windfarm in Norway.
Another WTE carcass was found at the Hitra windfarm, accidentally (10). But
no monitoring is being performed there, so we shall never know how many really died . This is most convenient for the windpower lobby, for the government, and for those ornithologists who make a living thanks to windfarms, or are hopeful to do one day.
STELLER´S EAGLES :
I am not aware of any victim among that remarkable species from Kamtchatka ( a larger bird than the WTE). But here are the words of a Japanese ornithologist about the construction of a windfarm on a migration hot spot on Hokkaido:
"My recent most concerning is about the project of a wind farm at the Soya peninsula where is very important migration and stop-over site not only for White-tailed and Steller´s Sea eagles but also for the other various birds. I have brought up this problem to ministry of the environment and also appealed to public, but the reaction proceeds weakly. This wind farm is under construction now."
JAPAN (http://www.iberica2000.org/documents/EOLICA/BIRD_MORTALITY/Japan_3_eagles_killed_in_2004.txt)
SHORT-TOED EAGLES (STE´s):
The Tarifa SEO/Birdlife report (1995) is the first evidence we have of eagles of this species falling victims to windfarms. A subsequent study on the same Tarifa windfarms (near Gibraltar) by the environmental association Agaden reported 6 STE casualties (actual bodies found - i.e. tip of iceberg) (5).
Another association, Gurelur - www.gurelur.org - sent me a picture of a STE killed at a Navarre windfarm, Spain. See photo here: Chilling Statistics
And a picture of a STE killed by a windfarm in Aragon may be seen here:
EL-SEKANO
That picture, plus two more of a STE flying through a windfarm overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar (Tarifa), is also shown here:
SLIDESHOW
Finally, a STE was maimed by the el Candán windfarm, in Galicia, Spain (11). The article reveals three things : 1) from the picture, it is easy to understand that the eagle will never recover, having a severed wing. 2) the willingness of the newspaper to play down the incident : " the eagle will be all right". 3) there have been many more such accidents in the area, in which the birds have died - says the journalist. I have tried to obtain more information, but Galician ornithologists keep their mouth tightly shut. The conflict of interest is palpable.
BOOTED EAGLES:
These birds were among the casualties found by Dr Lekuona in his Navarre
windfarm mortality study. (3)
In Castellón too, evidence has surfaced of their mortality : --> Castellon ---> look for "águila calzada".
A carcass was also found in the province of Albacete, Spain, killed by the power lines that link the windfarm of Carcelén to the national grid ( personal commentary ).
WEDGE-TAILED EAGLES ("WEDGIES"):
At Starfish Hill, South Australia, 2 "wedgies" were killed practically as soon as the 26 turbines became operative. Their bodies were found by chance by the public; and one more carcass was reported about a year later. Another wedgie got hacked at the Codrington windfarm, in Victoria. Eleven more were killed, according to the developer, of the rare and endangered Tasmanian subspecies at the Woolnorth windfarm, Tasmania ( 18 according to the chairman of Birds Tasmania, Eric Woehler). - These are sad news for the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, a sub-species with only about 130 pairs surviving. Any losses are significant.
These are the kills that have been reported to me from Australia. Some of them made the headlines Down Under, but it is reasonable to expect that others have occurred, and were not reported.
(imagen omitida)
Above: wedge-tailed-eagle maimed by a turbine blade at the Starfish Hill windfarm, South Australia.
BONELLI´S EAGLES ("BONELLIS"):
An ornithological association from Catalonia, GEPEC, reported the following:
- last year (2005) a Bonelli´s eagle was lured with a chicken, then shot and killed at close range in an area where a windfarm promoter was to erect a windfarm. The body was then deposited, in a defiant act, "somewhere were it would be easily found".
Two month earlier, a pair of Bonellis had disappeared in the same general area. GEPEC thinks both incidents are linked to the windfarm project.
Article in Catalan
- This year, the male of a pair of Bonellis has disappeared in the area of Coll de l´Alba, possibly killed by wind turbines already erected in that area.
Article in Catalan
It is a red-listed species, object of an EU Action Plan and of projects financed by the LIFE Nature Fund . There are less than 1,000 pairs of this bird left in Europe, and they are fast disappearing. Spain is their last stronghold, but 13,000 wind turbines soon-to-become 20,000 won´t allow them to survive very long.
DISCUSSION
The above information is far from reflecting the whole picture. Only a handful of windfarms are currently being monitored for mortality across the world. And even there, researchers can only find a small portion of the total number of victims: carcasses disappear rapidly, taken away by predators and scavengers, which soon take the habit of patrolling the windfarm grounds. This was reported by Dr. Lekuona - footnote No 3 below. He also witnessed a 10-kilo vulture being dragged away by a fox.
Other carcasses are buried by windfarm employees, anxious to hide the evidence - see picture of an unearthed body bag: SAVE-THE-EAGLES .
Others are found and never reported, especially as eagle parts are worth money.
Last but not least: why would people report their findings to me? I am but an individual, unknown from the public at large. Besides, most ornithologists prefer to not to get involved : money, careers are at stake, and peer pressure is strong. Wind industry agents are monitoring what is being said by ornithologists on bird forums, and they got me banned from some of them ( BirdForum, Ukbirdnet, SEO/Birdlife ), or "selectively censored" on others ( Raptor-Conservation, Vulture-Conservation - both belonging to the WWGBP - though I have been readmitted of late...).
For all of the above, it is evident that I am only aware of the camel´s nose, as they say in Japan. The only windfarm that has been studied thoroughly, Altamont Pass, is estimated to have killed 2,300 golden eagles in 20 years, and 20,000 other raptors (it is a very large windfarm). It has now been decided to stop half of the turbines during 4 months each year. But ornithologists are not overly optimistic about the effectiveness of that mitigation.
Eagles are slow to reproduce (e.g. Scottish GE´s: about 0.5 fledgling per pair and per year, and high mortality for the young in the 4 years prior to breeding). It is clear that, if windfarms continue to be built on eagle breeding territories and where the young hunt and interact ("dispersion areas"), their cumulative impact on these emblematic species will be severe.
A favourite argument of the windfarm industry is that domestic cats kill more birds. But cats don´t kill eagles. And one bird massacre does not justify another. The wind industry and their clients refuse to consider the effects of windfarms cumulatively with other causes of bird death. They also avoid considering the cumulative effect that hundreds of windfarms will have on the birdlife of any given country - like the 400-500 that are planned for Scotland, for instance. They insist on a "case-by-case" approach, which is a recipe for biodiversity disaster. Indeed, every decent conservationist knows that "cumulative effect" is one of the cornerstones of conservation. Another one, the precautionary principle, was thrown out of the window in the same desire to please the moneyed wind industry.
A great many ornithologists are now making a living working for windfarm developers, and pro-windfarm government bodies. They are not keen to see a return to leaner times, when jobs were scarce. Bird societies themselves have found financial benefits in the wind.
- The eagles and other rare species will pay the price.
This will lead to threats of extinction, and to reintroduction programmes, which also benefit ornithologists and bird societies financially. But this time around, they will be releasing the young eagles into a minefield...
UPDATE, Nov 7th 2008 : the cumulative number of white-tailed sea eagles killed at the Smola windfarm is now 20, but the RSPB keeps silent about it.
Yet, such news could make it difficult for developers to obtain authorization
to build windfarms in the Hebrides islands, which are the stronghold of the small Scottish WTE population. One can only conclude that the RSPB does not mind to see windfarms built where they may kill these rare and magnificent birds in Scotland.
That RSPB management would tolerate this is indicative of their list of priorities, where bird conservation is no longer on top - unless one believes their argument that :
- 1) global warming - or is it now global cooling ? - will kill more birds than the windfarms and their associated HT power lines - yet birds survived higher temperatures and even ice ages in the past, whereas many species may not survive 1 million wind turbines to be built across the world...
- 2) man-made CO2 is the cause of this so-called climate change - yet it has been demonstrated by independent scientists ( from the NIPCC and others ) that solar radiation, cycles in sea currents, and water vapour ( cloud formation ) are far more important drivers of climate than CO2...
- 3) windfarms are actually helping reduce CO2 emissions - yet evidence from Germany, Denmark and Spain, the most "turbinised" countries ( per capita ) in the world, show that CO2 emissions keep rising in spite of the large number of windfarms. This is explained by the intermittency and variability of wind, and the requirement that windfarms be backed-up 24/7 by spinning fossil fuel power plants, emitting more CO2 in the process. More information on this by Dr Etherington, here : Wind power - "variable" or "intermittent"? A problem - whatever the word.
And to those who would whitewash the RSPB with the fact that the 2008 Smola report will only be made public on Jan. 2009 : what about the 2007 report, which disclosed the finding of 2 WTE carcasses, 15 willow grouse, etc. ?
And what prevents them to tell their members, and the public, that the number of white-tailed sea eagles killed by windfarms in Germany rose to 32 as at Sept 1st 2008 ( just those that were reported to the authorities ). Ditto with the critically-endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle : 20 of them killed to date at the Woolnorth windfarm, the last two under the eyes of the ornithologists in charge of turning off the turbines when eagles are approaching !
And again the RSPB kept silent about the 12 eagles killed by wind turbines on the Gotland island in Sweden ( this news came out this summer ), and on those killed by windfarms in Japan, etc. And of course, as I keep repeating, this is just the tip of the iceberg of eagle mortality at windfarms. Most kills are never reported, and not just because eagle talons, feathers and skulls are worth money on the black market.
More news : a WTE was just killed by a wind turbine in the Netherlands, and more short-toed eagles were chopped to death in Spain, mainly at Tarifa, near Gibraltar.
Evidence of these kills is available upon request.
Mark Duchamp............................July 28 2006....last updated Nov 7th 2008
Other papers on windfarms:
The negative effects of windfarms: links to papers published by Mark Duchamp
FOOTNOTES
(1) - Speed at the tip of the blades - see here: Chilling Statistics --> Scroll down to: PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ON AVIAN MORTALITY.
(2) - Dr. Smallwood & K. Thelander, Aug. 2004: Developing Methods to Reduce Bird Mortality in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area - SEE CHAPTER 3, page 73, TABLE 3.11, 1ST LINE: "116.5 golden eagles p.a . adjusted for search detection and scavenging."
SMALLWOOD
I have kept a copy in case the report is removed from the Web. I shall send it upon request (it weighs 12 Mb).
(3) - Lekuona report: Critical analysis of 4 reports on bird mortality at windfarm sites. M. Duchamp (2003) - SEE SECTION 1.
Birds and windfarms - Critical analysis of 4 reports on bird mortality at windfarm sites.
(4) - WIND-TURBINES-BIRDS-FORUM
Also available here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wind_turbines_birds
(5) - Informe De Los Impactos Ambientales De Las Centrales Electricas Eólicas En El Termino Municipal De Tarifa (Cádiz) - Comisión de Energa de AGADEN. Septiembre de 1.999 – available upon request (600 kb – written in Spanish).
(6) - "Windfarms and Golden Eagles, the Argyll Experience" - Scottish Bird News No.84. (2007)
"Mike Gregory and ... are two founder members of the Argyll Raptor Study Group who have studied Golden Eagles in south Argyll and Kintyre for 35 years."
MIKE GREGORY : http://www.scottishraptorgroups.org/news.php?month=7&year=2007
Full article available upon request.
(7) - Windfarms to wipe out Scottish eagles
(8) - ALBACETE
(9) - SMOLA - a 14th death was reported to us later - available upon request.
(10) - Experiences from a wind farm at Smøla on the effects on the White-tailed eagle - Wind energy colloquium, NTNU, 30. August 2006
Available upon request.
(11) - GALICIA
(12) - "Risk management model of birds and a wind farm" - Shimada, Yasuo
Matsuda, Hiroyuki - Hozen Seitaigaku Kenkyu - November 2007.
Available upon request.
>> Autor: marcos (28/07/2006)
>> Fuente: Mark Duchamp
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