The average wind turbine whacks a minimum of about 8 birds per year.
Here’s one in action.
From an American Bird Conservancy media release:
American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization, today formally petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior to protect millions of birds from the negative impacts of wind energy by developing regulations that will safeguard wildlife and reward responsible wind energy development.
The nearly 100-page petition for rulemaking, prepared by ABC and the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm of Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal (MGC), urges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to issue regulations establishing a mandatory permitting system for the operation of wind energy projects and mitigation of their impacts on migratory birds. The proposal would provide industry with legal certainty that wind developers in compliance with a permit would not be subject to criminal or civil penalties for violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).
The government estimates that a minimum of 440,000 birds are currently killed each year by collisions with wind turbines. In the absence of clear, legally enforceable regulations, the massive expansion of wind power in the United States will likely result in the deaths of more than one million birds each year by 2020. Further, wind energy projects are also expected to adversely impact almost 20,000 square miles of terrestrial habitat, and another 4,000 square miles of marine habitat…
Wind power is not a good source of power period, and it starts with the bird kill. Add to it, the freezing of the blades that then toss huge ice pieces into the air. Fires due to not being able to handle high winds. The fact that most of them run on electric energy to keep them spinning when there is NO wind. As well as oil, fuel leaking into soil around the base of these unsightly beasts.
I am glad that the truth on these “green” money burning junk science experiment is finally being told.
How many times did that bird try to get hit before it succeeded?
And who trained it to do that?
This is the problem with liberals. They decry the oil and gas industry and do everything in their power to spend my money on alternative energy, but then refuse to institute it.
Cant have wind turbines because it kills birds (and makes our Cape Cod view ugly from our yachts).
Cant have solar panels in the desert because of ants.
Cant have oil because it
makes people richer than othersis dirty.Well guess what folks, you’ve “environmented” us out of options. You cant have it both ways.
What protective measures have a bunch of high priced Washington lawyers come up with; a large screen like they place around the props of an air boat? Makes more sense than probably anything they came up with.
If the government estimates of 440K birds killed annually are prepared by USFWS then the estimates are immediately suspect. FWS has a propensity of using graphite data to substantiate their findings.
Some are golden and bald eagles.