Robert Bryce writes in the Wall Street Journal:
For some environmentalists, the threat of climate change is so great that we must allow wind turbines to kill bald and golden eagles. The argument I’ve heard is that renewables, including wind energy, will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Less carbon dioxide reduces the threat posed by climate change, which benefits eagles and other wildlife.
In other words, we have to kill eagles in order to save them.
If this sounds far-fetched, consider the notice that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published in the Federal Register on Sept. 27. It seeks public comment on a proposed permit that will allow a wind project to kill up to five golden eagles over a five-year period, despite their protected status under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The permit is sought for the Shiloh IV Wind Project in Solano County, Calif. If it is granted, it would formally recognize a legal double standard that is already in existence with regard to wildlife protection in America.
Wind projects routinely violate the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, but no wind farm has ever faced a single prosecution. Meanwhile, companies in the oil and gas industry and other sectors are routinely indicted for violating those same statutes.
The illegal bird kills are not insubstantial. On Sept. 11, some of Fish and Wildlife’s top raptor biologists published a study in the Journal of Raptor Research that found the number of eagles killed by wind turbines increased to 24 in 2011 from two in 2007. In all, some 85 eagles have been killed since 1997. Joel Pagel, the study’s lead author, recently told me that the figure is “an absolute minimum.” Among the carcasses: six bald eagles.
dd: Not that I am a sworn Obama fan, but shooting somebodys eyes out is not going to solve anything. You have in the US a working alternative. It is called “Presidential election”. After all, it is American democracy that gives you the possibility of talking like you do. There are, to be sure, places where Big Brother would dig up your whereabouts and see to that you would not talk or do anything else whatsoever after that.
JOHN B: The lack of DDT killed more than 50 million people (some researchers set the figures as high as 90 million) in the Tropics after it was banned. Malaria exploded but WHO and UN were happy because DDT had been abolished. To hell with the consequences!
If I lived in the U.S. I would respond to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s request for comments from the public with an offer to trade in my gas-guzzling pick up truck for a Prius if they will permit me to kill an eagle. But I’m not sure they’d get it.
Rember to apply for “Non-purposeful take” permits and then kill all the bald eagles you want. Search http://www.fws.gov and see how the goverment permits this to happen.
DDT was abolished because it “killed” eagles.
The wind farms are a more efficient way of killing them than DDT.
Polar bears are a variant of grizzlies naturally modified for cold-weather climates. So we should stop nature and evolution to please the “environmentalists”!
I’ve said it over and over again; If the oil and gas industry were to kill as many eagles, hawks, etc. as the wind industry there wouldn’t be one manager walking free. They’d all be in prison and forced to pay millions in fines. All this proves is that the Audubon Society and their ilk are nothing but a bunch of political hacks in it for the power and money. They could give one whit about birds and environment. Sorry, Mr. Nation Symbol, but you’re on your own.
I did read one argument of an “environmentalist” for eradication of all grizzly/polar crossbreeds.
So don’t give them any ideas
Can’t we just ask him to please go away? That worked with Nixon, right?
Wind Farms:
Saving the world from CO2 one (or more) eagles at a time.
24 hr. surveillance cameras on the turbine blade bath is the only way to get an accurate count for bird and bat kills. With infrared, and a zoom lens, anyone with a home or building in view of the turbines could do this, and the evidence could be streamed onto U-tube. Until the truth about this industry is exposed, this sort of nonsense will not stop.
Well. I was going to say be careful dd. But I’m sure the NSA has already dispatched the FBI and informed the IRS.
Should be knocking at your door right around 2:AM
We’ll be seeing you.
Yikes. Guards! Guards!
Obama is above the law. He is a corrupt chicago democrat who has used drugs. he can do anything he wants until an intelligent person shoots his eyes out.
Unfortunately, American Indians who have picked up the wind-turbine-killed-eagles to use the feathers in their rituals have been arrested and convicted under the act.
We should kill polar bears for cracking the ice with their enormous weight.