On May 6, 2016 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Department of the Interior announced a plan that would set massive industry “bag limits” (permission or license to kill) for an eagle population that in many areas of America no longer or barely exists. In the case of the golden eagle, most of this eagle harvest will come from migratory eagles that nest outside the Lower 48 U.S. states. This is Part II of a four-part series which began yesterday. 

Since 1997, when the Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) repository first disclosed that wind turbines were a major cause of eagle deaths, wind energy has increased its deadly footprint by more than tenfold into golden eagle habitats in the western United States.

The FWS’s Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) created for the Eagle Rule Revision completely ignored the many thousands of eagle carcasses and autopsy records that exist in the Denver repository. …

“No individual and no other industry is allowed to kill even one bald eagle, much less 4,200 – much less do so year after year.”

“We are witnessing a government wildlife agency that was created to protect highly important species now laying out a red carpet so a devastating industry can kill many more thousands of eagles. The Fish & Wildlife Service might as well be sending an invitation to anyone in the Lower 48 to kill these iconic birds.”

Although I had been studying raptors and wildlife for decades, 2008 was the year I first became aware of the terrible fate that the industrial wind power industry was inflicting on our eagles. Since then, I have shared written many articles pointing out how this industry uses bogus research and devious methods to hide its slaughter of bald and golden eagles and other species.…

“… the very reason minimum setbacks for industrial wind energy machines are in place today is a result of the unusually tall machine heights relative to all other kinds of machinery, their massive exposed moving parts, and the prospect of visual, audible and physical imposition those characteristics dictate.”

“The unique circumstance here is one of permitting not only a sprawling industrial presence, the visual, audible and safety effects of which extend a great distance from each machine in the collection, but that the machinery is high in the air with exposed moving parts which are not even housed within a building.  This industrial presence bears no resemblance to agriculture or even to most conventional mechanized industrial machinery applications….”

The following comments were offered to the Ohio Power Siting Board in a workshop held last week.…

“As you can see, with larger turbines coming on line, we now have understandings of the effects over distances longer than previously assumed, and that requires us to rethink setbacks. The Shirley Wind Project [in Wisconsin] has engendered such severe health problems that the Public Health Unit declared the wind project a “human health hazard.”

The Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) has consulted with interested parties to update requirements for industrial wind turbines in the state regarding siting, wildlife impacts, health and safety, construction impacts, decommissioning, shadow flicker, ice throw, and noise (including infrasound).

Governor Kasich has instituted five year re-evaluations of the regulations and statutes under the Common Sense Initiative (Executive Order 2011-OlK). The consultation described here is carried out under the OPSB’s second finding and order in case number 12-1981-EL-BRO, finding 17, which welcomes further consideration of concerns expressed by the Stakeholders.…