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  • 2016-05-13 (xsd:date)
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  • Obama Issues 'Kill Order' for Bald Eagles (da)
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  • In early May 2016, a number of alarmist blog posts reported that President Obama had issued a kill order allowing more than 4,000 bald eagles to be slaughtered each year for the next 30 years. A popular version published by Liberty Writers was heavy-handed with symbolism, maintaining that President Obama really hates bald eagles: The basis of this claim was something rather different than what sites such as Liberty Writers were reporting, however. As an ABC News article of 4 May 2016 noted, what has been widely described as a kill order for bald eagles is actually revisions to existing wind-energy guidelines that, in part, pertain to accidental bald and golden eagle deaths involving wind turbines. According to the revised guidelines, the time permit of limits granted to wind power companies would be extended from five to 30 years (with renewals still required every five years), and the number of eagles that could permissibly (i.e., without financial penalty) be killed or injured each year by wind power companies would be increased. However, wind power companies would be required to take steps to minimize such losses and would have to take additional measures if they exceeded the stated limits or substantially affected bald or gold eagle populations: The change in regulations doesn't mean that power companies are suddenly going to be setting their wind turbines to eagle kill mode and bagging the limit of 4,200 bald eagles per year, however. A 2013 article published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Raptor Research found that concerns over the effects of [turbine-related deaths] on North America's Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles exist, but are weakly substantiated due to a lack of published documentation of mortalities. That study aimed to summarize documented cases of eagle mortality at wind energy facilities in the contiguous United States for the 15-year period prior to its publication. Between 1997 and June 2012, researchers identified 85 combined bald eagle and golden eagle fatalities attributed to wind turbines, or roughly 5.6 deaths per year in the entirety of the contiguous United States. Moreover, of those 85 total eagle deaths in a 15-year period, only six were bald eagles. The remaining 79 deceased birds were golden eagles. Those findings were illustrated in a state-by-state table: Additionally, conservationists asserted that the risk posed to eagles by wind turbines was far less than the risk created by the effect of climate change on the birds' habitats: So revisions to wind power guidelines allow for the possibility that wind power companies could kill more bald and golden eagles without penalty (up to 4,200) than they have in the past. However, there is little evidence that many eagles have been killed or injured under the existing rules, and the revisions are balanced by requirements that wind power companies implement more stringent safeguards to protect such animals, such as enabling the collection of valuable information about eagles, and helping to foster sources of energy (such as wind power) that do not threaten eagles through the degradation of their existing habitats. (en)
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