Wildlife researcher Jim Wiegand says "Green energy is a cover up and a lie because birds of prey are getting killed, people wouldn't believe how these turbines chop them up." Many members of the Pit River Tribe were among the protestors outside the Shasta County Administration Center touting the deadly effects wind turbines have on birds, particularly bald eagles.

Saying its blades will leave eagle blood in the air and on the ground, opponents of the Hatchet Ridge Wind Project are planning a protest rally. "It just really needs to be relooked at," said Radley Davis, a member of the Pit River Tribe and one of the protest organizers. The protest will be at noon Friday in front of the Shasta County Administration Center, organizers said.

Wendy Perrone, executive director of the Three Rivers Avian Center in Brooks, W.Va., said Friday that she had not seen all the details about the project, but there are some concerns. "The mountain range is a migration route used for many decades and centuries....from butterflies to bats up to and including eagles," she said. Windmill projects have a potential for killing bats. Why this happens is not yet clear, Perrone said.

Wind energy developers in New York now have guidelines on how to survey potential turbine sites for their impact on birds and bats. Earlier this month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued its advice regarding how to minimize damage to bat and bird habitats. "These guidelines set forth DEC's recommendations to commercial wind energy developers on how to characterize bird and bat resources at on-shore wind energy sites and how to estimate and document impacts resulting from the construction and operation of these projects."

An effort to protect both wildlife and wind farm profits will benefit from an agreement by 20 wind energy companies to "avoid, minimize and mitigate" the impact of wind turbines on wild birds and mammals, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission said. Unlike Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Canada, Pennsylvania has no regulations for wind farm projects, relying instead on voluntary guidelines without enforcement provisions.

Birdsong could be drowned out by the sound of giant wind turbines on a Northumberland moor say protesters, who have now organised a special event to highlight the diversity of species which flock there. Members of Save Our Unspoiled Landscape (Soul) who are fighting plans for six turbines at Barmoor, near Lowick, called in birdsong recording expert Geoff Sample to capture the sounds around the neighbouring Ford Moss, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The Minerals Management Service's 800 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind was released on Friday and in a largely favorable review found nearly all impacts to be negligible or minor. The few exceptions, where the 130 turbine wind farm would potentially or certainly have moderate to major impact were on birds, especially marine birds such as terns or sea ducks, on navigation and safety of recreational or commercial fishing boats, although those effects could be mitigated, and on visual resources of Nantucket Sound.

Massachusetts and Vermont wildlife officials are asking the public to help identify bats affected by a mysterious illness known as white nose syndrome. This time of year, bats are normally hibernating in caves and in abandoned mines across the Northeast. But researchers are getting reports of bats weakly flying around in broad daylight or dying on decks and in backyards.

Big plans east of Bend may come down to a small bird, the sage grouse. Central Oregon's first commercial wind farm could be up and running as soon as next year, unless it runs into environmental or other obstacles its backers cannot overcome. The $220 million project would be built on private land 30 miles east of Bend. However, the project is facing some scrutiny over it's impact on the wildlife habitat.

A 10,000-acre ranch that stretches into both Crook and Deschutes counties could be the site for Central Oregon's first commercial wind farm. ...But some environmental and wildlife groups point out it could also further threaten sage grouse and harm other animals. "Our point of view is we want to support renewable energy products. But just because it's renewable energy doesn't mean there aren't impacts," said Brent Fenty, executive director of the Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert Association.

Operators of wind turbines are already under pressure to improve the structures' quake-resistance strength. Now, they face another problem with nature: endangered birds flying into the turbines' blades. The bird strike problem has become so serious that measures to protect the fowl are slowing the spread of wind power as a source of electricity generation. ... A total of 14 birds designated by the government as national treasures, including white-tailed sea eagles, have died at different sites by flying into completed wind turbines.

More than six decades of painstaking conservation efforts that have brought the majestic whooping crane back from the brink of extinction may come undone because of the proliferation of wind farms in the United States. Their flight path takes them over states that have become prime locations for wind farms, a fast-growing, heavily subsidized source of renewable energy.

A group that wants to slow the rush of wind turbines to the Texas Coast is asking the Federal Aviation Administration to require environmental studies for Texas wind farms. The Coastal Habitat Alliance has filed a petition with the FAA asking for the change in policy. This is the latest in a series of attempts the group has made to fight the emergence of wind farms on the coast, which is a major migratory bird route. The alliance worries about the impact thousands of wind turbines could have on the bird population.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is drawing up plans that will see wind turbines constructed on its estates as part of a new green energy drive. The move, which will see the RSPB generating power for its own buildings and selling any surplus to the National Grid, is likely to anger some RSPB members who believe wind farms pose a threat to rare birds of prey.

Kunz, an internationally known bat researcher and director of BU’s Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, said wind turbines annually kill many raptors as well as tens of thousands of bats in the United States. Since these turbines have been promoted as an answer to America’s energy woes, Kunz called for more research into the environmental effects of wind power. He also warned that high numbers of bat fatalities may cause populations of insects to increase dramatically. ...Unfortunately, Kunz said, many power companies refuse to fund research on the impacts of wind farms and some even deny scientists access to turbines to count bird and bat fatalities.

RSPB Scotland put in written objections and supported Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) in giving evidence to a public local inquiry which finished this week, opposing what could be enormously harmful impacts of the proposed 14 turbine windfarm at Stacain, near Dalmally, in Argyll. RSPB Scotland believes the area is entirely inappropriate for a wind farm, and ministers should reject the application. The importance of the area for golden eagles, which are synonymous with Scotland's wild beauty, is such that it is almost certain to soon be proposed for designation as a Special Protection Area (SPA). If this goes ahead it will then be strictly protected under Scots and European law.

An estimated 266 whoopers - the largest wild flock of endangered whooping cranes - will migrate from Wood Buffalo National Park in the Canadian Northwest Territories to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Texas this fall. This migration route takes them directly through the center of the Central Flyway ...threats to the flock, including water and land development in Texas, wind farm construction in the migration corridor, and tar sands waste ponds in Canada all increased in 2008.

Ongoing studies of birds, marine mammals and sea turtles off the Jersey Shore have found an abundance of life in an area where hundreds of wind turbines could be spinning by 2020, participants in a public meeting said today. ..."We're trying to figure out where are the areas of sensitive habitat, if you will, areas that perhaps we should think twice about or avoid before we build something," he said. "The objective here is to try and steer these facilities to areas where impacts will be reduced."

Garrett County Commissioners have opened the door to wind turbines on Allegheny Mountain ridge tops -- and they're getting slammed by local residents for it. ...The commission said it will lobby the General Assembly to approve buffer zones of land between any future wind turbines and homes. Maryland doesn't have any wind turbines, while nearby states Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York all boast multiple wind farms.

A half-century of restoration efforts have bred the world's last 15 whooping cranes to create one, and only one, viable flock of 267 wild birds. But now, that progress may be reversed in the name of another environmental cause: renewable energy.