10
Wednesday, July 29, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Killing birds
for profit
Wind-power investors
really know how to use their
money: They buy a politi-
cian to help them make it —
so they can kill more birds.
This year, with unprec-
edented power and gall,
Representative Jeff Duncan
of South Carolina, inserted
a rider — a type of amend-
ment — into the budget
for Commerce, Justice and
Science that would prevent
federal prosecutors from
enforcing the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).
Undoing a law of such his-
torical importance should
be discussed and debated
at length. Instead, at orders
from the wind-power indus-
try, Representative Duncan
wants the law gutted with
little-to-no-deliberation.
The MBTA was estab-
lished in 1918 to put a stop
to the indiscriminate killing
of several species of water
birds that were being slaugh-
tered for their feathers that
were then sold to the milli-
nery industry for (literally)
more than gold. Since that
time it has been implemented
to save thousands of birds,
hundreds and hundreds of
acres of quality habitat, and
to stop the wind-industry
from killing eagles, other
raptors and songbirds.
The National Audubon
Society and the MBTA
were formed by the people
of the U.S. after one of the
Audubon wardens was assas-
sinated by feather poachers.
After the law was put into
force, William L. Finley —
Oregon’s first Wildlife com-
missioner — stalked the
streets of Portland in 1918,
arresting women with migra-
tory bird feathers in their
hats.
It’s worth looking into the
nature of Senator Duncan’s
team more closely. The main
issue seems to be that in the
minds of the representatives
who go along with him, the
dictates of the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act are too
detailed and absolute.
After all, no one is killing
egrets and herons for their
feathers anymore; no one is
shooting western grebes for
their breast feathers to make
“Oregon sable” coats. They
don’t consider it a hinder-
ance that the same law will
help stop the wind-powered
investors from killing any-
more eagles (and about
50,000 bats a year!)
However, to make this
all the more clear, here’s
the guts-and-feathers of the
statute:
[I]t shall be unlawful at
any time, by any means or in
any manner, to pursue, hunt,
take, capture, kill, attempt
to take, capture, or kill, pos-
sess, offer for sale, sell, offer
to barter, barter, offer to
purchase, purchase, deliver
for shipment, ship, export,
import, cause to be shipped,
exported, or imported,
deliver for transportation,
transport or cause to be
transported, carry or cause
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to be carried, or receive
for shipment, transporta-
tion, carriage, or export, any
migratory bird, any part,
nest, or egg of any such bird,
or any product, whether or
not manufactured, which
consists, or is composed in
whole or part, of any such
bird or any part, nest, or egg
thereof…
That spells it out pretty
clearly. These conditions fit
all the birds the wind-power
people have killed and
maimed since the first tur-
bines went up in California,
Oregon, Washington and
other parts of the US, over
20 years ago.
Unfortunately, the MBTA
doesn’t protect the 50,000
bats killed annually by wind
turbines, and it appears
the states where this hap-
pens don’t seem interested
in fighting the tycoons that
invested their money in the
industry, so they’ve just
crossed them off as “collat-
eral damage.”
The recent fines levied
against a Portland-based
wind-farm company — the
second to be sentenced to
fines for killing hundreds of
protected birds in Wyoming
with its turbines — will
force them to pay $2.5 mil-
lion in fines, restitution and
do community service, an
action that was long overdue.
Everyone in avian wild-
life circles knows the indus-
try has been slaughtering
birds for years, but no one
seemed anxious to take them
to task and force them to
become responsible for their
actions. U.S. Fish & Wildlife
estimates that the spinning
rotors on wind turbines are
photo by JiM anderson
an adult golden eagle.
killing over 500,00 birds per
year, and with wind farms
popping out the ground like
mushrooms, the death toll
could more than double by
2030.
Maybe for U.S. Fish &
Wildlife it was just “enough
is enough!”
Just a single death of a
migratory bird is technically
a violation of the MBTA,
whether it be eagle or war-
bler. In their public com-
ments, critics of the act focus
on this threat to wind farms,
and shortly after introduc-
ing the rider Representative
Duncan told us who’s pocket
he’s in when he said:
“This is a legitimate con-
cern. A small number of
wind-energy producers have
been prosecuted for killing
migratory birds. In 2013, for
example, Duke Energy set-
tled charges that its turbines
killed 14 golden eagles and
149 other protected birds in
Wisconsin.”
He didn’t mention Pacific
Corp Energy pleading guilty
in U.S. District Court in
Wyoming in December of
2014 to violating the federal
Migratory Bird Treaty Act at
two wind projects. Among
the dead were 38 golden
eagles, and the carcasses—
besides the eagles, there
were 336 other protected
birds; all stashed away at the
company’s Seven Mile Hill
and Glenrock/Rolling Hills
wind projects.
Then there’s power lines
that that kill (at least) 4 mil-
lion birds — perhaps even
up to 50 million. Poorly
designed windows, espe-
cially on towering buildings
with huge windows over-
looking the world under
them, kill another 50 million
or so.
Doesn’t this make you
think again about allow-
ing professional politicians
the freedom of running our
country?