Eagles: Gone With The Wind?

Across the globe a new threat to eagles is quickly replacing shooting, poisoning, trapping and electrocution by power lines. The traditional Big Four has a new 'kid on the block'; Industrial Wind Farms.

Thousands of eagles are being killed by turbine blades every year all over the world and that number continues and will continue to grow as wind farms do.

The Alatmont Pass wind farm, in California, is probably the most infamous one. There, it is estimated that, over 2,300 Golden Eagles have lost their lives in the past twenty years to wind turbines. But, contrary to what the wind industry would like us to believe this is not an exception to the rule.

The Smola Wind Farm, off the coast of Norway, is responsible for killing off their entire breeding population of the endangered White-tailed (Sea) Eagle and all of their babies in less than ten months. This wind farm is brand new, considered state of the art and fitted with those modern slow moving turbine blades the industry likes to boast about, but these 'slow moving blades' are simply an optical illusion since they travel at over 200 mph at their tips.

Golden Eagles, White-tailed Eagles, Wedge-tailed Eagles, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles and Bonelli's Eagles along with Griffon Vultures and scores of other raptor species are being decimated by wind farms with gruesome reports and pictures streaming in from the United States, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Spain and the United Kingdom.

But it's not just the Eagles that are dying at wind farms.

Bat and songbird mortality goes into the millions each year with the numbers rapidly growing as researchers begin to count them.

A study in New York has just filed its draft report on bird and bat deaths at a new 120 turbine wind farm. Although pre-construction studies predicted little to no impact to birds and bats this study now shows predictions of up to 6,000 bird and bat deaths a year based on body counts.

And no one knows how to stop it.

There is no more universal symbol of strength, beauty, freedom and independence than an Eagle. And there is probably no one on this planet that doesn't recognize an eagle and isn't moved by seeing one.

They speak to us. They speak to a part of ourselves that is collective in the human heart and the human soul and the human spirit.

Eagle emblems are carried into battle, adorn our halls of justice and the national flags of dozens of countries. Yet, in the name of the 'poster child' for alternative energy, fear of Global Warming and dependence on foreign oil we are wiping them out.

What will happen to our human hearts, souls and spirits when the Eagles are gone and we are left with, only, their symbols, signifying nothing.

There are alternatives to industrial wind farms that will help our planet and not kill our eagles in the process. Look into, support and push our elected officials to develop and bring on line the Hydrogen Economy based on alternative energies like Solar and Biomass.