Thursday
May192016
The Eagle And The Hawk ... And The Windmills
THIS PACKS A PUNCH
How Wind Turbines Are Decimating The Golden Eagle Population
Wind turbines are not friendly to eagles, hawks and other birds of prey.
Read more here: Will Wind Turbines Ever Be Safe For Birds?...
WHERE HAVE ALL THE EAGLES GONE
This is outstanding, especially the second half.
THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK -- LIVE VERSION
From his 1977 concert in Australia.
Here's the song as made famous by John Denver who was killed in 1997 at the age of 54 when he lost control of his small experimental aircraft and crashed into Monterey Bay.
May 19, 2016 at 12:37 AM
Reader Comments (6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipQGkR-Puf4&feature=youtu.be
http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds
License to Kill: Wind and Solar Decimate Birds and Bats
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/license-to-kill-wind-and-solar-decimate-birds-and-bats/
Besides BP being fined $100 million for killing and harming migratory birds during the 2010 Gulf oil spill, in 2009, Exxon Mobil paid $600,000 for killing 85 birds in five states and PacifiCorp, which operates coal plants, paid more than $10.5 million for electrocuting 232 eagles that landed on power lines at its substations. The first wind farms to be fined took place in November 2013 when Duke Energy paid a $1 million fine for killing 14 eagles and 149 other birds at two wind farms in Wyoming from 2009 to 2013.[vi] To date, no solar facilities have been fined. The fines are related to protections in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The death of an eagle or other protected bird is a violation of federal law, unless a company has a federal permit.[vii]
The Obama Administration on December 9, 2013, finalized a regulation that allows wind energy companies and others to obtain 30-year permits to kill eagles without prosecution by the federal government. The American Bird Conservancy filed suit in federal court against the Department of the Interior, charging it with multiple violations of federal law. [viii] Nonetheless, the Shiloh IV Wind Project in California, for example, received a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowing it to kill eagles, hawks, peregrine falcons, owls and songs birds while not being subjected to the normal prohibitions afforded under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Treaty Act.[ix]
http://www.blockislandtimes.com/article/deepwater-wind-erects-180-foot-tower-collect-wind-data/25020
One developer had a real big problem with moose wandering in and getting tangled in the guy wires usually knocking down or seriously damaging the system.
It got so bad I had to develop a way to prevent this from happening and thus 'Moose-B-Gon' was invented (no patent). It was a clever little device (non-toxic, safe for the environment and no harm to animals) that when detected by the moose would keep them away or you got your money back.. It works very well with deer and other critters as well.
I am pretty certain that elsewhere, deer may have perished getting entangled in the wires.
Best Science protects wildlife--but this is the tool left in the box. We consistently witness compromised science that leads to compromised federal decisions.
One thing that corrupts science, in the context of wind turbines, is (money) Adaptive Management Monitoring and Mitigation (AM) funding. This is the "kill then count" method that determines environmental impact by theoretical counting of carcasses and carcass parts, "monitoring". "Mitigation" describes methods used to reduce mortalities...such as baiting rodents that attract birds of prey to wind turbine areas.
Altamont, CA wind turbines AM contract value was $3 million start-up and $1 million per year following according to Michael Boyd of CAlifornians for Renewable Energy that sued wind project owners over the killing of federally protected birds.
RED FLAG--Massachusetts Audubon's condition of "support" for Cape Wind is a Cape Wind-funded contract beginning at construction and continuing at least three years post construction---YET, they were involved in the permitting review process when they uttered this project "support" with contract condition. MA Audubon brass failed to remain objective. But what's worse is that MAS brass denied their testimony to federal regulators on their staff scientists' bird kill estimates by this projects, up to 6,600 avian mortalities per year,
It must have been too difficult for this wildlife protection group's brass to publicly reconcile their "support" for up to 6,600 violations of strict-liability-criminal-statutes per year by Cape Wind.
A Mass Audubon member is admirably informed and outraged and thankfully very vocal, here-
The Valley Patriot
Cape Wind Project: A Tale of Crony Environmentalism (Part 2) Did Mass Audubon Sell its Soul to the Wind Industry?
By Christine Morabito – June 2015
(clip)-
"The decade-long relationship between Massachusetts Audubon Society (MAS) and the Cape Wind Project is laden with inconsistencies. In February of 2005, MAS had serious concerns about the proposed 130-turbine offshore wind project’s environmental impact on Nantucket Sound, and responded in a lengthy testimony to federal regulators. Most significant was their estimation that the turbines, in the path of a major migration route, would kill between 2,300 and 6,600 birds a year.
Curiously, the above estimate was later denied by Audubon’s Taber Allison, former Vice President of Conservation Science and Ecological Management, in a letter to the editor of South Coast Today, (“Letter writer gets bird facts wrong,” August 3, 2006). Allison has since left MAS, to become Director of Research and Evaluation for American Wind Wildlife Institute, working in partnership with the wind industry..."