Wedge-tailed Eagle | Photo by “Fir0002/Flagstaffotos“
By Jo Nova
Greens destroying nature again
Some experts think there may be only 1,000 of these eagles left, our largest bird of prey, and yet in the last 12 years some 272 of them have been killed or injured in the vicinity of Tasmanian wind towers. That’s at least as far as the maintenance crews have noticed, and not that they were specifically looking…
So the number can only go up, and other types of birds are getting the chop too.
The Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle has been known to have a wingspan as large as 2.8m (9ft 3in). They mate for life, and a single nest can be 1 – 3 meters across.
Tasmanian wind rush ‘may push eagles to extinction’, says study
By Matthew Denholm, The Australian
Tasmanian wind farms and transmission lines have killed or injured 321 threatened eagles in 12 years, but the real figure is likely far higher, a new study finds.
The peer reviewed study, published in Australian Field Ornithology, uses data from wind farms, TasNetworks and eagle rescuers to identify the death or injury of 272 endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles and 49 vulnerable white-bellied sea eagles.
It found that from 2010 to 2022, 268 eagles were recorded killed and 53 injured by wind and transmission energy infrastructure, with the state’s four wind farms reporting 38 deaths, TasNetworks 139 deaths and raptor rescuers 91 deaths.
Mr Pullen’s study points to estimates from some of these experts that less than 1,000 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles remain …
Ornithologists and conservationists (but not the Federal Greens) are calling for a moratorium on new industrial wind plants. Apparently the Australian government will try to protect migratory birds but it’s bad luck for the local residents. Some wind farms are not even required to monitor and report bird deaths anymore.
For the unwashed masses though, killing a wedge-tailed eagle is illegal.
Things just aren’t going well for the windfarms (or the eagles)
Tasmania is theoretically going to be home to the largest wind plant in the Southern Hemisphere, the Robbins Island Mega Wind Factory — but it only got approval to operate if it shut down for five months of the year so it didn’t hurt the Orange Bellied Parrot.
The other bright idea was to use a high-tech detection system to spot the eagles and shut the turbines down when birds approached. (Imagine if we had to turn off the coal plants every time an eagle visited?) But last month the news came out that the bird avoidance system at Cattle Hill Windfarm had still killed eight endangered wedge-tailed eagles in less than four years (plus some other birds too). It may not sound like much but there are plans to build nine or ten new sets of turbine “parks” across Tasmania, and if one tower misses, the next one will get them…
It’s not about the environment is it?