ROSAMOND, CA - After a decades-long effort to rescue the California condor from the brink of extinction, government officials say the critically endangered vultures are now at risk of being killed by spinning turbine blades.

Impact on Birds USA California

ROSAMOND, CA - After a decades-long effort to rescue the California condor from the brink of extinction, government officials say the critically endangered vultures are now at risk of being killed by spinning turbine blades.

Impact on Birds California USA

The red knot is an endangered bird that stops in the Delaware Day — where a wind farm may soon be — to eat horseshoe crab eggs during its trip from the Canadian Arctic to Argentina. Chuck Homler/Focus On Wildlife/Wikimedia Commons

Impact on Birds USA

“The opinion freezes the MBTA in time as a hunting-regulation statute, preventing it from addressing modern threats to migrating bird populations,” she wrote in a decision vacating the opinion, calling it “an unpersuasive interpretation of the MBTA’s unambiguous prohibition on killing protected birds.”

Impact on Birds Legal USA

Solar facilities kill tens of thousands of birds every year, and no one is quite sure why. An artificial-intelligence-powered birder is on the case.

Impact on Birds USA

More than 30 state lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Ohio Power Siting Board to reconsider its approval of the Icebreaker wind-farm project 8 to 10 miles northwest of downtown Cleveland only on the condition that it not operate at night for 8 months of the year. 

Impact on Birds Ohio

Nine out of 10 migratory birds are inadequately protected during at least one leg of their annual migrations, according to a 2015 study published in Science. Before 2017, a person could be prosecuted for accidentally killing a bird, but an opinion submitted by the Department of the Interior effectively changed that interpretation so that only intentional harm – mainly illegal hunting – is legally punishable.

Impact on Birds USA

Stephanie Kromer, director of energy and environmental policy at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, is using the coronavirus as a smokescreen to publicly rally for updating (read: weakening) the National Environmental Policy Act (“Refine regulatory landscape,” June 20).

Impact on Birds Ohio

It is notable that many of the conservationists defending wildlife from industrial wind turbines and transmission lines view the Democrats’ refurbished Green New Deal and its call for the “rapid deployment” of wind and transmission lines not as a climate dream but rather as an ecological nightmare. This isn’t the first time Democrats have shown a willingness to sacrifice wildlife for the wind industry.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds Energy Policy USA

[The Ohio Power Siting] board unexpectedly imposed restrictions. It said Icebreaker must conduct radar studies of bird and bat traffic over the proposed site before and after construction. And nighttime operation of the turbines must be suspended during the months-long migration periods, unless and until studies conclude that is unnecessary. Opponents, some of whom have filed lawsuits to halt Icebreaker, consider the restrictions a victory. 

Impact on Birds Ohio

However, the developers of the project were less than satisfied with one of the conditions of the approval by the OPSB. According to the order, Icebreaker Wind must completely feather its turbines (stopping them from rotating) during nighttime hours from March 1 through November 1 as an initial bird and bat risk mitigation measure.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Offshore Wind Ohio

The extension of the PTC provides a stark reminder of how an influential industry can manipulate the Washington favor factory and in doing so, turn what were supposed to be temporary subsidies into permanent ones worth billions of dollars per year – and even more remarkably, get those subsidies extended without ever getting the money appropriated by Congress. 

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats USA Ohio

The extension of the PTC provides a stark reminder of how an influential industry can manipulate the Washington favor factory and in doing so, turn what were supposed to be temporary subsidies into permanent ones worth billions of dollars per year – and even more remarkably, get those subsidies extended without ever getting the money appropriated by Congress. 

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Ohio USA

A pair of large wind energy facilities proposed in Clay, Jack and Montague counties would wreak havoc on the whooping cranes that pass through the area as part of their migratory pattern, according to a wildlife group. That’s the assessment of wildlife biologist Jennifer Blair of Blair Wildlife Consulting, who was hired by the North Texas Heritage Association to study the plans offered by Apex Clean Energy and EDF Renewables.

Impact on Birds Texas

The Act creates a new Office of Renewable Energy Siting, which will work with other agencies to review and set conditions for proposed renewable energy projects. The input of wildlife management agencies will be crucial to ensure that birds receive adequate protection, but under the new law, these agencies are given short time windows to participate. Insufficient staffing, busy seasons, and many other factors could prevent meaningful review and input, potentially leaving birds largely out of the discussion.

Impact on Birds New York

Bird migration is underway on the southern shore of Lake Erie. At the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO), a road through a remnant of the once-vast Great Lakes coastal marsh is filling up with cars driven by birders, clutching binoculars and eager for an early glimpse of migratory birds. Robert Sink comes a few times a week from Findlay, Ohio, about an hour away, with his tripod and telephoto camera lens. He posts daily on a Facebook group for Ohio bird photographers. “When the season becomes warmer, I’ll be up here every other day or so,” he tells me.

Impact on Birds Impact on People Ohio

“What happened with the turbine blade killing that bald eagle over in Wood County — that just confirmed our worst fears,” he said. “That dead eagle is the reality of this issue, and it shows that this can happen right here in our backyard. It is awful, and you just hope you can find someone who is interested on the federal level and get them to take some kind of action.” Mark Shieldcastle, a retired avian biologist from the ODNR who is widely recognized as the region’s preeminent expert on birds and bald eagles, said the flying and hunting patterns of bald eagles put them in a very precarious position when wind turbines sprout in their habitat.

Impact on Birds Ohio

But as the grassroots groups battling the Northwest Ohio wind farm projects continue to wade through a swamp of uncertainty as they deal with attorneys, politicians, lobbyists and the Ohio Power Siting Board, which regulates the siting of wind farms, their strongest ally might turn out to be a scavenger whose persona affords it an almost saintly aura — the bald eagle.

Impact on Birds Ohio

Bedford and his wife, Cheryl, purchased more than 400 acres of land on top of one of the hills surrounding San Miguelito Canyon in the early 1990s. With the land previously untouched, they had to build a private road leading up to their home, which sits at roughly 1,700 feet in elevation, before beginning construction.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds California

DES MOINES — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced a habitat conservation plan proposed by MidAmerican Energy as the best solution to help preserve certain bat and eagle species at company wind farms.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats USA Iowa