Wind turbines to kill 900,000 - 1,800,000 bird deaths by 2030?
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The wind industry is prepared to increase the number of turbines 30 fold over the next 20 years, in order to fulfill the President’s request that renewable energy projects supply 20% of the nation’s energy needs by 2030.
At the current estimated mortality rate, the wind industry will be killing 900,000 to 1.8 million birds per year. While this number is a relatively small percentage of the total number of birds estimated to live in North America many of the bird species being killed are already declining for other reasons, and losses of more than a million birds per year would exacerbate these unexplained declines. Data from the FWS Migratory Bird Management and Breeding Bird Survey by the US Geological Service indicate that at least 223 species of our native bird species are in significant decline (about 1/4 of all species in US). The mortality at wind farms is significant, because many of the species most impacted are already in decline, and all sources of mortality contribute to the continuing decline.
wind-watch.org
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If the approximately 900 turbines currently proposed for wooded ridge tops within a 70-mile radius of our study sites in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are built, those turbines alone could kill more than 50,000 bats a year. Given bats’ low reproductive rates, kills of such magnitude could put entire species at risk.
batcon.org
Some of us do care however.
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