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Re: [Carolinabirds] Raptors and turbo-turbines
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Re: [Carolinabirds] Raptors and turbo-turbines
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 16:18:37 -0400 (EDT)
- In-Reply-To: <000c01beff89$17804fc0$707e07a7@schmidt>
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Elise Schmidt wrote:
>
> Audubon: www.audubon.org/campaign
> Condor-Pass: www.condor-pass.org
Elise:
Thank you very much for posting these web addresses. For those who
haven't visited them yet, here are some lowlights:
* A California Energy Commission
report on one wind project found
that 55% of all raptor deaths were
due to collisions with wind turbines.
* Up to 300 birds of prey, including
dozens of golden eagles, are killed
every year by a single California
wind turbine project.
* More eagles are killed by wind
turbines than were lost in the
disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill.
* Turbine construction attracts
raptors. Changes in vegetation and
soil disturbances can increase
rabbit, squirrel and other small game
populations, luring raptors in search
of food who instead find a grisly
death.
The natural range of the condor
spans two north-south corridors
in California connected only by a
very narrow flyway, precisely
where Enron wants to erect its
deadly wall of wind turbines.
Some observers have called this
area "ground zero" for the
condor.
* In the 1980s, two of the last
five pairs of condors nested
above Pyramid Lake, only a few
miles south of Enron's proposed
site.
* The last condors trapped from
the wild in 1987 were on Tunis
Ridge, just north of Enron's
proposed site.
* The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's newest condor
reintroduction site is the
Chimneys/Wind Wolves Release
Area, northwest of Enron's
proposed wind farm and just a
short flight for a condor.
I'm more than a little put off that the US government has spent millions
of dollars on the California Condor captive breeding program to
re-establish the species in the wild, but may allow a private corporation
to use a tax loophole which could lead to the condors dying. It amounts
to taking our imcome taxes and putting them in Enron's CEO's pocket, when
you come right down to it...
Good luck surviving Floyd, one and all; if the eye comes this way, and
the roads aren't blocked, I'm hoping to visit Falls Lake as soon as it's
safe tomorrow. Not Rolling View though, I remember all the state
recreation areas closed during last summer's closest call. Hopefully
they'll open again in time for the NAMC on Saturday.
Good birding,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology
jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/