Video strikes at threat wind power poses to birds
WILDLIFE -- A 30-second video of an eagle being clipped by the blade of a wind turbine helps illustrate the reason for the American Bird Conservancy's bird-smart wind campaign to address the impact of wind farms on bird populations.
By 2030, there will be more than 100,000 wind turbines in the U.S., and these are expected to kill at least one million birds each year—probably significantly more.
Wind farms are also expected to impact almost 20,000 square miles of terrestrial bird habitat, and another 4,000 square miles of marine habitat, some of it critical to threatened species, the conservancy says.
Bird-smart wind power employs careful siting, operational and construction mitigation, and monitoring, as well as compensation to reduce and redress any unavoidable bird mortality and habitat loss from wind energy development. The conservancy maintains that these issues should be included in mandatory federal wind standards.