House cats don't kill Golden Eagles.
> Turbines almost never kill bald eagles.
Better to attribute the ramping of Bald Eagle populations across North America to the ban of DDT and other organochlorines, as well as successful restorative nest hacking in areas where they were extirpated. Windfarms are simply not common enough to be a mitigating factor (yet).
> Golden eagle fatalities are relatively uncommon at wind projects.
This is a clever turn of phrase. One could also say wind projects are also relatively uncommon, which is probably the biggest reason there haven’t been more eagle fatalities. One need to look no further than Altamont Pass, California, to see what happens when you install a windfarm adjacent to the largest known population of nesting Golden Eagle in the world. That's a worst case scenario, of course. But the point is that good siting is pretty much the key to making bird killing a non-problem. As more windfarms are installed, the problem will likely become more common.
With that said, state and federal regulators in the USA have either by omission or intent set very low bars for “voluntary reporting” and mortality monitoring. The lion’s share of the mortality data that exists is strictly “proprietary”, and has never been shared. And most windfarms do practically no monitoring at all apart from the laughingly inadequate pre-construction and post-construction surveys mandated by the USFWS. And why should they? The hostile legal environment surrounding permitting, for example, would make it foolhardy for any company to go out of their way to collect data that could only become a giant liability down the line. Simply put, the absence of data for eagle mortality should not be taken as a sign that there is no eagle mortality occurring.
> The majority of golden eagle deaths occur at older wind farms build in the 1980s, when the relationship between turbines and eagles was not understood. Better-sited, modern turbines are replacing outdated ones and lowering deaths by 80 percent.
They are referring to Altamont Pass, again. Modern turbines are definitely better. Rather than the picket-line or gauntlet of high-speed blenders installed atop hills where birds slope-soar and hunt, modern turbines tend to be spaced much farther apart, greatly reducing the likelihood of a collision. However, reducing incidence of collision does not mean “lowering deaths”--it just means that that each “pass” an eagle makes through a windfarm becomes less dangerous. This distinction is important. In windfarms where choice prey is abundant, hunting eagles will typically make several extended passes through a windfarm each day, making their likelihood of an “encounter” with a turbine quite high over a period of several days or weeks.
They say “lowering deaths by 80 percent”, then backpedal a bit farther down:
> It is estimated that eagle fatalities will be reduced by as much as 80% as those long-standing wind sites replace their shorter, more numerous, faster-rotating old turbines with taller, less numerous, slower-rotating modern turbines that are sited based on more experience.
I was about to say: the only windfarm in the country that’s employed any serious “repowering” effort is Altamont Pass. And the speculated improvement that new turbines are better than the old turbines for “lowering deaths” there has, so far, been inconclusive. It’s not that modern turbines aren’t an improvement, it’s just that this webpage doesn’t yet have any justification to be making this claim!
> Modern turbines have slower-rotating blades, and fewer are needed to generate the same amount of electricity.
Modern turbines’ rate of rotation is indeed slower, but the speeds of the actual blades (especially on the distal half) is actually appreciably faster than smaller bird blenders. In practice, it just means the risk is harder to model, since birds can at times ably pass through the relatively slow rotating part of the blade path near the nacelle but be likely to be literally sliced in two if attempting the same manoeuvrer more toward the end of the blade.
> It also seeks scientifically credible ways to lower and mitigate wind energy’s impacts.
Translation, wind companies are trying to dig up some legit-sounding research on the cheap that backs up what they say. With very few exceptions, the business of wind energy is incompatible with properly funding the research on its impacts. This slack is left to underfunded academics and conservationists, not companies built for the purpose of profit.
> Developers thoroughly evaluate risk to eagles before projects are sited and built. Developers make adjustment to wind farm design, turbine locations and project operations to reduce potential impacts. They abandon the riskiest sites in order to avoid significant impacts.
This is basically BS. It wasn’t until the Duke Energy settlement over its WY wind projects that wind companies starting taking this much more seriously. Ten years ago, it was more normal to find an environmental consulting group who’d be willing to game the EIA and pre- and post-contructions surveys to help you through the federal site permitting process.
> If the risk for eagle collision is high, operators are often required to continuously monitor for any impacts on eagles and mitigate for them should they occur.
This is BS. Under “voluntary reporting” guidelines, who’s to even know? It’s only very recently that regulators have imposed any sorts of requirements like this.
> These permits are similar to take permits available under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which is the gold standard for wildlife protection.
They are not so similar at all, with the sole exception that permit issuance smacks more of capriciousness by regulators than helping mankind find a sound(er) balance between wildlife and the needs of man.
I could go on, but why bother? This is just a dumb PR page ...
One could. I could also say that I drove by about five or six hundred wind generators today...
Nothing in what you said above really convinces me that you should have anything against wind farms in general. It's all FUD.
But, seriously, I see too many bad faith owners/operators who really don't give a shit about their effects on wildlife. And I see regulators setting a low bar and showing no teeth when it actually matters. Altamont Pass is a prime example--despite knowing about the "bird problem" there for many years, there has never been a requirement by state or federal regulators for any sort of mitigation at all. I find that honestly a bit disgusting.
Even the Eagle Take Permit's primary tool of "compensatory mitigation" (usually in the form of utility pole retrofitting) does not address where the problem actually occurs. You don't balance wildlife populations like you would an algebra equation--instead, the side subtracted from is simply subtracted, even if you conceivably enable gains elsewhere.