Eagles Killed By Solar Panels

By stuart kaplow on december 10 2013 posted in sustainability last week the u s.

Eagles killed by solar panels.

Okay to kill eagles with wind turbines but not with solar panels or. In response to growing accusations from both conservationists and conservatives that renewable energy sources like solar and wind kill too many birds u s. Ii the american bird conservancy estimates that the wind industry killed over 2 000 eagles in three decades. Department of the interior issued the long awaited final regulation permitting the take injure kill or otherwise disturb of bald eagles and golden eagles for wind energy projects.

Since the diet of bald eagles is primarily fish when wind turbine developers begin constructing wind farms on our coasts or near lakes or rivers the mortality rate for bald eagles will skyrocket. The other solar farms analyzed by the investigators were of the newfangled trough and solar. This is likely an underestimate because these estimates were based on 51 630 megawatts of installed wind. Birds can be killed when they smash into the facility s solar panels the investigation concluded.

The development of large scale solar energy facilities on public land in the desert has been a top priority of the obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation s dependence on fossil. According to the fish and wildlife service as many as 500 golden eagles are killed by collisions with wind towers power lines buildings cars and trucks each year. At the infamous altamont wind resource area alone more than 2 000 golden eagles have been killed by the wind turbines there. Meanwhile we ve built more wind turbines.

According to a study in the wildlife society bulletin every year 573 000 birds including 83 000 raptors and 888 000 bats are killed by wind turbines 30 percent higher than the federal government estimated in 2009 due mainly to increasing wind power capacity across the nation. For each power source wind solar oil and gas nuclear and coal the data on bird deaths is gathered from. Yes birds have died at solar farms most famously at the ivanpah project in san bernardino county where birds have been incinerated as they fly through the solar flux reflected by fields of.