Some want renewable energy fast; others want to slow down to check on birds.

A submission to list the orange-bellied parrot as critically endangered, could put an end to wind farms in Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria.

The long-running battle between country folk and government over windfarms took a new twist today as a war broke out between the Scottish Executive and a conservation body which has called for more “green” electricity generation. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and its Scottish branch have in the past angered many rural communities for being outspoken supporters of wind farms - which mainly serve towns and cities but are always located in the countryside. But the Scottish RSPB today issued an outspoken protest about re-designed plans to build the UK’s largest windfarm on the Isle of Lewis, in the Western Isles, which it says is “one of Scotland’s most sensitive and important sites for wildlife.”

The Pennsylvania Game Commission today signed cooperative, voluntary agreements with 12 companies to avoid, minimize and potentially mitigate any adverse impacts the development of wind energy may have on the state's wildlife resources.

The big wind farm debate rumbled on this week as the RSPB again signalled its opposition to the nine-turbine plan for West Hinkley. The society stood against Your Energy’s proposals when they were first submitted in 2004. Giant turbines, RSPB representatives say, would have a detrimental effect on the birds living around the site.

Scottish Natural Heritage yesterday confirmed its objection to a huge wind farm planned for Lewis. SNH board members reiterated their previous view that land covered by special protection area status might be harmed by the development. They also said there was insufficient information to determine the potential impact on birds. Last week, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) voted 18-8 in favour of the plan by Lewis Wind Power, subject to 50 conditions, including the removal of five of the proposed 181 turbines. Because of the scale of the 651-megawatt project, a final decision rests with the Scottish Executive. Meanwhile, SNH has withdrawn its objection to a proposed wind farm at Edinbane on Skye. It follows a public consultation by Highland Council on the latest submission from the developer AMEC, which included an appraisal of the likely effect on golden eagles.

MILAN, Italy, May 10 New technologies are making an effort to mitigate environmental concerns over bird fatalities caused by wind turbines in Europe. A new monitoring program called WT-Bird has passed preliminary tests and will enter the next phase of testing. The WT-Bird, created by the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, uses several techniques to monitor bird collisions.

THE rare orange-bellied parrot, behind the scuttling of a $220 million Gippsland wind farm, is the subject of a $3.2 million Federal grant to protect its habitat.

THE orange-bellied parrot that played a key role in a controversial decision to reverse approval for a wind farm in Victoria has been placed on the critically endangered list. "I will be announcing today, in fact I think I'm announcing now, that I have formally signed the law upgrading the orange bellied parrot to critically endangered," Environment Minister Ian Campbell told a gathering of school children at Parliament House today. Only about 150 of the birds are left in the wild.

Interest by California-based AES Wind Generation in establishing a large-scale wind energy operation in Gillespie County is being reconsidered, it was learned here Monday. According to a City of Fredericksburg official who asked not to be identified, a letter from a company officer stated that AES SeaWest Inc. of San Diego has decided to discontinue pursuing wind energy in an area north of Fredericksburg that generally stretches between U.S. Highway 87 and RM 965. Instead, the city official related, the company has decided to focus on other areas in Texas. Prompting the decision, he added, was AES' concerns that sensitive species and bat colonies living in the area could be incompatible with large-scale wind energy.

Oakland, Calif. – The Alameda County Planning Department is recommending that long-time wind industry paid consultant and advocate WEST, Inc. serve as the so-called “neutral” scientific monitor for avian deaths caused by the Altamont Pass wind turbines, despite a clear and continuing financial conflict of interest.

Alameda County supervisors approved a one-year monitoring system that would study the impacts of the Altamont Pass windmills on scores of birds, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other protected species. The $1.4 million price tag for the deal caused concern among the supervisors, who are afraid the cost of the study has spiraled out of control, but saying the study was necessary, they approved it unanimously Tuesday.

OAKLAND Calif. – A blue-ribbon Scientific Review Committee (SRC) and an Avian Monitoring Team appointed by Alameda County to study bird fatalities at Altamont Pass has begun a groundbreaking monitoring program aimed at finding solutions for reducing the high number of birds of prey killed at some wind turbines. This monitoring effort is intended to detect trends in bird mortality at Altamont Pass and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation measures implemented to reduce avian mortality. The goal is to reduce deaths of target raptor species by 45 percent.

I am a volunteer at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum hospital (in Walnut Creek, Calif.). In the last two weeks we have had to euthanize three golden eagles and many other birds of prey that have fallen victim to the (Altamont) windmills. Too often the windmills chop them up so bad it is impossible to save them.

Migratory birds and bats bludgeoned to death in flight. The movement of ungulates such as elk and threatened caribou disrupted. Wild wind-swept mountain tops -- the 'Beautiful' in B.C. -- despoiled by massive industrial infrastructure. Sound like green energy? These are among the concerns being raised over wind energy, even as the province's Environmental Assessment Office gives the green light to Dokie Wind Energy Inc. to build B.C.'s first wind farm near Chetwynd. "We still have concerns," confirmed Linda Sullivan, senior program officer for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which has been working with B.C. officials. "Where there is wind, there are birds. There is a greater number of migratory birds in that particular area."

An energy developer from New York is moving forward with a project to build a gargantuan wind farm along the Columbia River in Gilliam and Morrow counties. If built out as proposed, Shepherd's Flat wind farm would be the largest in the Northwest and more than double the size of any individual wind project under development in Oregon. It would include as many as 303 wind turbines, some stretching 500 feet tall. At peak capacity, the project could generate up to 909 megawatts ...It would include 57 miles of new access roads, two substations, six meteorological towers, 17 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and another 103 miles of collector transmission lines. The application lists about 25 landowners within the site or within 500 feet of its boundaries.

In popular Halloween folklore, vampires are able to transform into bats. And, of course, fiction tells us that one way to kill a vampire, and thus the bat, is with a stake through the heart. But in areas around the United States, a new potential bat killer has emerged - wind turbines.

The state’s attempt to balance wind power generation with wildlife protection on a western Maryland mountaintop is under attack from both sides. Annapolis-based developer Synergics Inc. is appealing a Public Service Commission hearing examiner’s Oct. 30 recommendation for approval of the company’s 17-turbine project atop Backbone Mountain in Garrett County. Synergics’ appeal will focus on conditions proposed by the Department of Natural Resources to protect habitat for rare and endangered species, the company’s spokesman said Friday. Five opponents of the project, including Baltimore-based environmental activist Ajax Eastman and the Maryland Alliance for Greenway Improvement and Conservation, also have appealed the recommended order. Most of them believe the environmental restrictions don’t go far enough.

Environmentalists are divided over whether "wind farms" are an Earth-friendly source of power. Timothy P. Dillingham, director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Littoral Society, is a member of the blue-ribbon panel that studied the issue. He and his organization oppose the idea..."We are talking about building an industrial facility out in the ocean," he said. "There is no framework, no set of regulations to ensure public protection. People think there is money to be made. People think there is some answer to global warming here. Caution is being thrown to the wind, so to speak."