Shocking new statistical evidence has emerged that suggests the golden eagle could be on a wind turbine-induced glide path to extinction in the United States. Eagle deaths due to wind turbines in the western US were increasing by around 9% a year from 2013 to 2020, but this annual increase leapt to 13% from 2020 to 2024, a jump of 49% in the annual increase in death rate. Bird maps are said to show that the relative abundance of golden eagles across much of their western range has declined and areas where declines occurred, “align with areas where the most turbines have been constructed”. There are fewer than 40,000 golden eagles in the US and the recent acceleration of wind infrastructure “could have a significant negative impact on the golden eagle population”.
This data and associated conclusions have been published in a new Elsevier paper written by a group of American wildlife conservation scientists. They used a Bayesian collision risk model and inputted widely available data such as the eBird abundance maps. The Bayesian model is widely used in collision risk assessment and uses objective observations and relevant information. For obvious Net Zero reasons there is little research on wind turbine wildlife carnage, although it is known that millions of bats and birds, along with a huge insect tonnage, are crunched by ever larger and more numerous wind blades. Large birds such as eagles that hunt moving prey and rely on wind currents to fly are particularly at risk and the scientists estimate that 80,000 raptors (of all kinds) are killed by wind turbines across the US every year.
The discovery by the wildlife scientists of a recent statistical jump in golden eagle mortality is particularly disturbing. As the graph below shows, the average number of estimated deaths had risen from 110 in 2013 to 270 last year.
The scientists note that golden eagles are particularly vulnerable to mortality from wind turbines since their predatory nature places them at more danger than scavenging birds. The eagles are a slow-reproducing species and it is noted that even low levels of additional mortality due to wind turbines may have a “significant” effect on overall populations.
The danger is only likely to get worse, even if Net Zero mania in the US starts to tail off in the new Trumpian political environment. Writing recently in CFACT, David Wojick says that the threat to the eagles is “potentially enormous”. Current wind power-generating capacity is 160,000 MW, but there is a queue of interconnection applications amounting to an additional 230,000 MW. Much of this, the researchers note, is within the western range of the golden eagle.
The number of turbines is showing a significant increase but the rising rate of eagle mortality is also due to the massive growth in the areas swept by increasingly large blades. With blades now being produced that are as high as the Eiffel Tower, this increases significantly the wildlife killing zones. The scientists measure this as “hazardous volume” and state that it rose by 198% from 2013 to 2024 in the higher risk areas and 119% in the lower risk zones. This translates to an increase of the potential killing zone during this period from 17.3 km3 to 47 km3. During this time, the number of turbines increased by 26% but the hazardous volume rose much more, by 171%. This figure alone would seem to explain the concerning recent jump in estimated fatalities.
Is it fair to suggest that the golden eagle might be on a wind turbine-induced glide path to extinction in its western US habitat, and potentially other areas of the world that are blighted by massive nature-destroying turbines? The answer is yes, the threat is real, it is undoubtedly growing, and it is ignored by mainstream media and political discourse. Many governing elites are fixated by the idea that windmills can power a modern society, providing clean energy and delivering a more ‘sustainable’ world. But it is becoming clearer by the day that wind turbines have a devastating effect on the natural world, killing significant fauna that could eventually threaten the survival of many species.
Few are more adapt at turning a blind eye to ecological destruction than the local Hesse Green Minister Priska Hinz, who stated recently: “Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forest and important ecosystems.” Possibly the cynical laughter would not have been so great if she had not made the comments defending the destruction of forest in Germany to erect a number of 240 metre high wind turbines. What could have been a dirty little secret instead attracted worldwide headlines since the clearing involving the destruction of a reported 120,000 trees in the forest of Reinhardswald, the setting for the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Worse, the turbines were due to be erected around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle.
Pierre Gosselin, who runs the German-based science site No Tricks Zone, was unimpressed, noting of green energy: “It’s not cost-free, it’s full of corrupt and unresponsive politicians who no longer care about democracy, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment better. It’s a nasty juggernaut of waste, fraud, corruption and ecological degradation – with dead birds, turbine vibration sickness, strobe dizziness and landscape pollution.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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