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Save
The Eagles International
PRESS
RELEASE
29 March 2011
Windfarms
threaten many bird species with extinction
Save
the Eagles International (STEI) wishes to warn the international
community about the threat that windfarms and their power lines
represent for biodiversity. Unlike cars, buildings, and domestic cats,
wind turbine blades and high tension lines often kill protected or
endangered birds like eagles, cranes, storks, etc. Cumulatively and
over the long term, 3.5 million wind turbines to be installed worldwide
will cause the extinction of many
bird species, some of them emblematic.
STEI’s president, Mark Duchamp,
objects to the wind industry comparing
bird mortality at windfarms to that, larger, from other causes related
to human activities. These other threats have already reduced bird
populations worldwide, he said, and are continuing to do so. “But
mortality caused by windfarms and their power lines is new and
additional", he adds, "and like the proverbial last drop that
spills
the glass, its effects will be upsetting. To wit the Tasmanian
Wedge-tailed Eagle, which has been condemned to extinction by the
construction of 7 windfarms in its habitat” (1).
Another important difference, says
Duchamp, is that the other threats
can’t be easily stopped, whereas poorly-sited windfarm projects can.
The Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO/Birdlife) recommended this
month that windfarms no longer be
built in natural areas, but in urban
and industrial areas instead (2).
One week later, SEO/Birdlife
revealed that bird mortality caused by
windfarms and power lines was much higher than previously thought. For
the Spanish region of Castilla La Mancha, they estimate it to be "1.3
million birds a year, many of them in danger of extinction like the
Imperial Eagle, the Bonelli´s Eagle or the Lesser Kestrel”. And
they
added: “(this is) a considerable
number which proves that windfarms
have a great capacity for killing birds”. (3)
"This
is what I have been claiming for 9 years", says Duchamp, "but
only this month did SEO recognize the danger. During all that time I
have been treated as a heretic, and was banned from ornithology forums
where my whistle-blowing was causing discomfort in the
profession.” The French naturalist, who lives in Spain,
has been
vindicated at last. He praises the American Bird Conservancy, Birdlife
Bulgaria, and SEO for their firm stand against improperly sited
windfarms, but laments that it will take more years before the most
prominent bird societies do likewise. Conflicts
of interests are at the
root of the problem, he says.
STEI warns that, if we are to save
our emblematic bird species from
this new threat, it is urgent to impose a moratorium on windfarm
construction and to call for a really
independent commission to
investigate the whole windfarm matter, starting with the effectiveness
of this intermittent, unreliable, and ruinous form of energy.
Duchamp founded Save the Eagles
International in 2009, to raise
awareness and to publish inconvenient bird mortality statistics that
most bird societies fail to make available to the public. He has
launched today the STEI website where these numbers and their sources
can be found:
www.savetheeaglesinternational.org
REFERENCES
(1) - Wind
farms: suspicious error by consultant condemns Tasmanian
eagle to extinction.
www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=4382
(2) - SEO
Birdlife: “ Castilla-La Mancha "debe abandonar el viejo
modelo de grandes centrales de generación eléctrica situadas en plena
naturaleza y alejadas de los puntos de consumo y fomentar la generación
eléctrica en suelo urbano e industrial".
Translation: “Castilla-La
Mancha “must abandon the old model of large
power plants located in natural habitats, far away from where the
energy is consumed, and promote electrical generation in urban and
industrial zones.”
http://www.seo.org/sala_detalle.cfm?idSala=5551&CFID=61202893&CFTOKEN=93998397&jsessionid=aa302686ed74705b2617
(3) - SEO
Birdlife: “1,3 millones de aves al año… un número
considerable con el que se demuestra que los parques eólicos tienen
«una gran capacidad para matar aves».”
Translation: “1.3 millon birds a year… a
considerable number which
proves that windfarms have a great capacity for killing birds ”
http://www.laverdad.es/albacete/v/20110308/albacete/parques-eolicos-amenaza-aves-20110308.html
Contact:
+34 693 643 736
or using Skype:
mark.duchamp
save.the.eagles@gmail.com