2 thoughts on “Crime: Golden eagle death at Nevada wind farm brings federal scrutiny”
Who knows how many birds are killed each year due to strikes from wind turbines. USFWS has been so concerned about loss of habitat of the golden cheek warbler and black-capped vireo in TX that they placed thousands of acres under a habitat conservation plan (HCP) to mitigate for the loss of habitat due to transmission line ROW construction. These are threatened species that USFWS has no idea if or how many of these birds occur in the project area, what impact clearing for ROW will actually have, or if any birds will be displaced because of clearing. Habitat identification has been done strictly from satellite photography using signature analysis and no field truthing. What is laughable is when one puts pencil to paper, using USFWS consultants data, the loss of potential habitat amounts to less than 5 % of the total habitat within the HCP. It seem like federal employees get very stressed out over the loss of a few acres of cedar trees.
By the same token USFWS never had any concerns about potential bird loss related to strikes within the wind farms. Most birds are covered by some kind of legislation; some by more than one law. The bottom line is USFWS uses pure junk science in determining crucial habitat but fail to have any studies to assess the true impact of a project. Just because the wind farms and the transmission lines are constructed and owned by different companies they projects can not be separated.
I am suprised they are even paying attention to what the bird chopping windmills are doing. It’s not as though they are a dirty profit seeking oil company. Their intentions are good. Isn’t that all that matters?
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Who knows how many birds are killed each year due to strikes from wind turbines. USFWS has been so concerned about loss of habitat of the golden cheek warbler and black-capped vireo in TX that they placed thousands of acres under a habitat conservation plan (HCP) to mitigate for the loss of habitat due to transmission line ROW construction. These are threatened species that USFWS has no idea if or how many of these birds occur in the project area, what impact clearing for ROW will actually have, or if any birds will be displaced because of clearing. Habitat identification has been done strictly from satellite photography using signature analysis and no field truthing. What is laughable is when one puts pencil to paper, using USFWS consultants data, the loss of potential habitat amounts to less than 5 % of the total habitat within the HCP. It seem like federal employees get very stressed out over the loss of a few acres of cedar trees.
By the same token USFWS never had any concerns about potential bird loss related to strikes within the wind farms. Most birds are covered by some kind of legislation; some by more than one law. The bottom line is USFWS uses pure junk science in determining crucial habitat but fail to have any studies to assess the true impact of a project. Just because the wind farms and the transmission lines are constructed and owned by different companies they projects can not be separated.
I am suprised they are even paying attention to what the bird chopping windmills are doing. It’s not as though they are a dirty profit seeking oil company. Their intentions are good. Isn’t that all that matters?