Here in Tasmania we have a subspecies of Wedge Tailed Eagle and the White Bellied Sea Eagle, which have evolved due to the isolation of breeding on an island state. The issue of birds and bats being killed by turbine blades isn't new. And turbine companies have scrambled to invent technologies which purport to reduce collisions. But when a blade tip is travelling at 300km per hour, it's not going to slow down quickly enough to avoid a collision when it senses an eagle in the vicinity. The Australian newspaper reported in August 2023 that at least 8 endangered Tasmanian Wedge Tailed eagles had been killed at one wind farm alone, despite 'industry leading' bird avoidance technology.
Eagles have a large territory, of up to 500km and in winter especially, they need it, as food is scarcer. Wind farms not only destroy habitat, they drive potential prey away from feeding grounds. Eagles are very large birds, with a wingspan of up to 2m. Despite the power of their wings, they struggle to get lift and the balance between hunt-ready fitness and starvation is a delicate one. So they tend to land on slopes, where there is sufficient warm updraft to enable to get back into the air again. Slopes. Right where wind farm companies want to put their wretched turbines. Eagles mature slowly, taking up to 5 years to mature and have only one chick per year. If the nest is disturbed, they will abandon the chick and the nest. Numbers are at a critical level, with less than 350 breeding pairs remaining in Tasmania, which threatens the genetic diversity of this majestic animal.
The other issue for eagles is the transmission lines. All kinds of birds land on electrical cables, but eagles, with their larger bodies, have a greater distance between their feet. This creates a current and ZAP! They're dead.
The Robbins Island proposal, of 163 turbines, 270m tall in a small area, right on the coast, is a brutal reminder of just how greedy and careless these developments are. Not only are the Wedge Tailed Eagle and Sea Eagle under threat, but many shore birds also. Dr Bob Brown, who championed the Franklin River Dam protest, has been strangely silent about other wind farm developments, but was very vocal about Robbins Island. It is perhaps too little, too late. There is BIG money behind this proposal.
In California, "The avian impact of wind turbines first achieved notoriety with the farm at Altamont Pass, where the small turbines used proved particularly dangerous to various raptors that hunted California ground squirrels, with some suggestions that they were attracted to their deaths by the prey seeking refuge under the spinning blades where they knew they were relatively safe. There were reportedly 1300 raptors killed annually, including seventy federally protected golden eagles in a total of 4700 birds killed annually. Since Altamont was built there has been a reported 80 per cent decline in golden eagles in Northern California, with none nesting near the facility, despite it being a prime habitat." source
At current wind farms in Tasmania, at Woolnorth and Musselroe the death rate of eagles is well documented. The problem is not going away. No amount of technology will fix this problem. The impact of wind turbines upon our pristine wilderness and prime agricultural land (where eagles often hunt) is just too great to accept. Where nuclear is a clean, efficient form of truly green energy, the insistence upon wind energy cannot be justified. article
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