"Why would they make a decision like that?" Barrett said. "I want to know who made this call. I want to find out if someone directed MNR to grant this permit and go against its legislation. My gut feeling is there is something seriously wrong here. I want to find out whether this decision was made outside the MNR." The Summerhaven wind project belongs to Nextera Energy Canada.

Impact on Birds Canada

Jody Allair is a biologist with Bird Studies Canada in Port Rowan. He is the chief monitor of the bald eagle nesting program in southern Ontario. The MNR sought his opinion before issuing the removal permit. ...Allair told the MNR that the nest should be left alone and the turbines relocated elsewhere. Allair only learned of the nest’s removal on Monday.

Impact on Birds Canada

"The Ontario government continues to blindly accept inaccurate information from wind companies as the truth without providing an investment in truly independent, scientific studies of bird, bat, butterfly migration before and after these projects are built."

Impact on Birds Canada

"There are only 50-some bald eagle nests in Ontario," he said. "This is one." "There's no end to the limits that the government will go to accommodate the wind industry," he added. He also cautioned that the issue is much more far-reaching than Haldimand County.

Impact on Birds Canada

Yesterday at 5:00pm the MNR gave a permit to this corporation to destroy this eagle pairs nest, and cut down the tree- as long as they were able to do it by January 6th - tomorrow. In typical cold government language, it is justified that the tree and nest should be removed as it was "scheduled to be removed for the construction of a road, and within 20 metres of the blade sweep of a proposed turbine".

Impact on Birds Canada

Commissioner Gord Miller's recent annual report says Ontario needs to be "smarter about where we place wind power facilities," adding there are shortcomings in the guidelines for evaluating and reducing turbines' harmful effects on birds, bats and their habitats.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada

Gord Miller’s report said no new wind farms should be constructed in the province’s 70 designated Important Bird Areas (IBA). One of those IBAs is located on the south shore of the County. Miller said there are two areas in which the government needs to improve guidelines to enhance protection for both birds and bats.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada

"In an area where there could be hundreds of thousands of birds flying through in any one migrating period, this is a very bad place for wind turbines," said Waddell. "It really is a very important resting, feeding, just roosting spot."

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada

An internationally recognized "Important Bird Area" is being threatened by an Ontario wind power development, a Canadian conservation group alleges. Gilead Power Corporation hopes to build a nine-turbine wind farm on the south shore of Prince Edward County, a huge peninsula that juts into eastern Lake Ontario.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada

Nature Canada says the project's 86 turbines are among the most destructive of wildlife in North America. The organization argues TransAlta should shut down parts of the wind farm - one of the biggest in the country - during high-risk periods in the late summer and early fall.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Impact on Wildlife Canada

Industrial wind turbines pose a significant risk to Ontario waterfowl, a speaker told an audience Thursday night. Scott Petrie was in the city to talk about how the turbines affect the natural world. But, he added, it isn't an issue that will catch the public's ear - and he knows this.

Impact on Birds Canada

The short-eared owl, listed as a species of special concern in Canada, has all but disappeared from the west end of Wolfe Island. A noted Kingston-area birder says the decline has everything to do with the construction and startup of wind turbines on that part of the island two years ago.

Impact on Birds Canada

Then last month, Stantec Consulting, the firm that produced the original report, released its report on the second half of the year: January 1, 2010 to July 1, 2010. And the results for birds are troubling. Though casualty numbers for birds did not skyrocket in the second sixth month period, a time that included the spring migration, they still were high enough to make the Wolfe Island wind plant the most deadly for birds in Canada.

Impact on Birds Canada

Alarming bird and bat mortality rates at the Wolfe Island wind farm have an international group calling for a three-year moratorium on wind energy projects on the Upper St. Lawrence River and east end of Lake Ontario. Save The River vice-president Stephanie Weiss said the 86-windmill farm has caused the death of 688 birds and bats, equalling eight per windmill.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada New York

An environmental group is calling for a 3-year moratorium on wind farm development along the upper St. Lawrence River, citing potential threats to the region's bird and bat populations.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada New York

Save The River is urging local municipalities bordering the Upper St. Lawrence River in the U.S. and Canada to implement a three year moratorium on wind project development. The move was taken after careful review of recent data showing potentially high avian and bat mortality from the first six months of operation of the Wolfe Island Wind project, the only operating wind project in the region.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada New York

Will Wolfe Island's eco-terminations prove more palatable with the public because they are caused by a ‘green industry'? If Canada follows the United States' lead, wind turbines will get a free ride.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Canada USA

Clearly, this is a double standard. Syncrude faces fines of up to $800,000, while Wolf Island's bird and bat mortalities are accepted as part of the cost of going green. The oilsands get unfairly labelled as "bloody oil," but nobody complains about "bloody wind."

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Canada

A recent study of bird and bat mortality at Wolfe Island's 82-turbine wind farm is raising concerns among environmentalists. An interview with Ornithologist Bill Evans explains the concerns.

Impact on Birds Impact on Wildlife Canada New York

"Shockingly high" numbers of bird and bat deaths caused by one of Canada's biggest wind farms should serve as a warning to planners of other projects that may be built in crucial wildlife zones, one of the country's key conservation groups says. ..."We should not be putting these farms in places where the risk is going to be high," he said. "It is a disaster that we can see coming." At the very least, turbines should be shut down at certain times of year to reduce bird kills, he added.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Canada