farmdoc's blog post number 157

Last Sunday morning, lying in bed luxuriating in the last moments before I arose, I looked out of the window and saw above the treetops, two eagles. They were high up – circling, wheeling, slowly, majestically, effortlessly. Probably an aerial courting display. The Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle is critically endangered – the estimated adult population is under 440 birds – due to factors including habitat loss (caused by logging); and a high death rate from the poison 1080 (used in forestry), shooting (which is illegal) and wind turbine blades. In the past month two eagles have been killed by turbine blades at the Woolnorth wind farm, bringing to 12 the number killed there since the farm’s commissioning in 2004. The farm’s operator, Roaring 40s, apparently spends A$1m annually to prevent eagle deaths, including human monitors who watch for eagles. Herein lies a conundrum: Wind power generates no carbon and so it contributes nothing to global warming and climate change. But the turbine blades kill significant numbers of this critically endangered bird. Maybe there’ll be a scientific solution. I sure hope so. But if not, then an almost impossible decision looms: Global warming is so serious and urgent that it requires multiple responses. And every response has its downside. It’d be a crying shame if the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle’s extinction became collateral damage. It really would.