“Environmental Crime”… Rare, Endangered Birds Being Killed To Clear Way For Wind Park Project Approvals

The online German BR24 of Bavaria here writes how many endangered birds are being shot or poisoned in what appears to be in some cases attempts to clear the way for controversial projects such as wind parks.

Already there are strong protests across Germany concerning wind parks ruining the landscape, damaging the local biotope, disrupting the water management and the sickening infrasound that the installations emit. But now “climate rescuers” are also actively purposely killing rare birds that obstruct project approvals.

The BR24 reports how each year 40 – 50 suspicious cases of large dead birds across Bavaria are examined in order to determine the the cause of a large bird’s death. Recently a passerby found an extremely rare sea eagle dead near a railway embankment. Experts say that it is highly unlikely that the large predatory bird was killed by a passing train.

The large sea eagle was thus taken to the Bird Protection Monitoring Station in Garmisch-Partenkirchen where it was X-rayed and underwent an autopsy to determine the real cause of death, The result: it had been poisoned. An illegal rat poison was found in its stomach and liver.

This is a tragedy because according to Hans-Joachim Fünfstück, Director of the Monitoring Station:

Concerning sea eagles, we have only a very small stock in Bavaria. We are not even at 25 breeding pairs. We have 20 pairs, maybe. Every bird is precious.”

Overall, the BR 24 writes that in Garmisch Partenkirchen all suspiciously dead birds undergo an autopsy and writes that a cause of death “is often poisoning” by using tainted bait.

Hans-Joachim Fünfstück says that although the work is fascinating, “it is also depressing when it is discovered that the bird was either shot or poisoned. ”

In the case of the poisoned sea eagle, it was likely struck by a train because it had been rendered too sick and was no longer able to react properly.

The BR24 also reports that recently a dead hawk was found under or power transmission tower and made to look as if it had been an accident. But an X-ray of the hawk revealed that it had been shot.”

Unfortunately, the BR24 writes, the perpetrators almost always get away.

17 responses to ““Environmental Crime”… Rare, Endangered Birds Being Killed To Clear Way For Wind Park Project Approvals”

  1. John F. Hultquist

    “An illegal rat poison”

    Illegal or not, at home we do not use poison for rodents.
    First, the bird might catch a mouse that has ingested the stuff and thereby get a dose.
    Also, rodents will gather and stockpile pellets and have been known to do so where domestic animals get to it, say in a hay barn. Chickens, ducks, horses can get to the hay, finds the pellets, eats like it was grain => sick or dead.

    Anyway, such killings, while not on purpose (although could be) still produce a dead animal.

    The chemical warfarin, a blood thinner, [brand name Coumadin] and marketed as rodent bait as d-Con has been stopped in the pellet form.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-CON#History

    1. mothcatcher

      If you have never seen the effect of Warfarin used as a poison, you will have no idea just how wicked it is.

  2. John F. Hultquist

    I will mention, also, that in our local farm/ranch region, birds of prey will hit fences while concentrating on a running mouse, rabbit, or small bird. Sometimes they live and a local vet takes care of, sends to a re-hab place, and releases them. If dead and found by a “birder”, they (the dead) are frozen and brought to the local Audubon meeting, then taken to the Burke Museum of Natural History . . . in Seattle.

  3. Don from OZ

    No way am I a ‘greenie’ but I am dead set against killing innocent harmless birds More so if they are Endangered species.
    Here in Aust we use ‘waxy’ blocks (laced with poison) for rats and mice to chew. They are either nailed to say a board or wired loop through the centre of the block which is then tied to a solid object to stop the rodent dragging it away. Seldom ever find dead ones outside the building they inhabited.

  4. Rah

    This in a country that sets up frog fences in order to channel the frogs to an underground tile so they don’t get smashed on the road?

  5. sasquatch

    What’s a few sea eagles? Who cares? Nobody really sees them fly, so what difference does it make? Should know better than to fly into a bullet, it’s the eagle’s fault. The eagle should be able to detect tainted bait, good grief, how dumb can an eagle get. The eagles are the culprits here.

    It’s fun to watch a buzzard get whacked by a wind turbine blade and watch it go thump when it hits the ground. Should have never been near the wind turbine, it is trespassing, the buzzard had it coming to him.

    It’s a cruel world.

    Cats will take care of rodents. Snakes will eat rodents. If you let nature take its course, you will have an ecosystem, it changes, a group of owls will be hanging around for a while, then they leave, foxes try to establish a foxhole, use the yard as a hunting ground, you can see them thirty yards from where you stand. Doggone gophers and ground squirrels establish a colony and nature moves in, since it abhors a vacuum. The foxes are dining on gophers, hundreds of gopher holes around, the fox know a good thing.

    The dog has one look and begins a chase, the fox can dart and outrun the dog, but it is close. The fox move on, too much competition. I’ll shoot if I have to. One year there are thirty deer in the shelterbelt, two years later, the deer suffer a die-off and they’re gone. Now and then you see a moose here and there, but not too often, they like water.

    Very easy to see a deer population go from plenty to a dearth. They survive the die-off, the population returns to higher numbers.

    Bald eagles fly in and out, hawks, kites, falcons, geese, ducks, cranes, all there, most of the time. The coyotes move in close at night, the dog goes ballistic, gives chase and the coyotes are gone. The dog won’t lose the battle. Coyotes skedaddle. Songbirds during the summer months, you know they’re not gone.

    I have seen a bald eagle at 300 m and above the eagle are two hawks at about 400 m. The eagle will be moving along.

    Of course, if the place were riddled with wind turbines, you wouldn’t see any of that, you know, your basic garden-variety natural habitat that can support wildlife, given the chance, it just would not be there, wind turbines will destroy it, bring it to ruin. It will happen.

    Wind farms destroy natural habitat, cause ecological harm resulting in disaster. Been known to extirpate humans too, causes heartache and monetary losses. That’s what they get for wanting to be in the way of progress.

    Ecological change which results in ruin, all caused by stupid humans and is devastating.

    So easy to see, so easy to ignore.

  6. mothcatcher

    The examples you give don’t seem to provide any evidence at all that the desire for wind farms is behind this, and I can’t really see that you have even successfully described a motive.

    People shoot or poison birds of prey for many reasons. In the north of the UK it is to protect nurtured populations of gamebirds so that they can be killed by humans, rather than by avian predators. Something as big as a Sea Eagle is also a threat to farm livestock, including lambs, and of course pets such as cats and small dogs are easy prey, so that very many people are opposed to current laws which preferentially protect large predators, and I have sympathy for that. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (an Audubon analog, but with quasi-legal clout) is packed with raptor enthusiasts, and is working to introduce/reintroduce them to new areas, over the heads of local opposition. The White-tailed Sea Eagle is one of those much favoured.

    Windfarm promoters? Doubt it.

    1. Yonason

      @mothcatcher

      Can’t it be both?

  7. Bitter&twisted

    Mothcatcher.
    I wouldn’t put anything past wind farm developers and their political protectors in pursuit of taxpayers’ money.
    Up to and including murder.

    1. Sommer

      “Up to and including murder.”

      Take a look at what Dr. Mariana Alves-Periera has presented to professionals in Slovenia in May of 2018, regarding LFN and infrasound and the harm to both the neurological system and to the cardio vascular system of humans from wind turbines.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCZ3OyklrE

      She has openly stated that knowing what she now knows, she would not live with 20 km of a wind turbine.

      In Ontario, we have peoples’ homes and in some cases neighbourhoods surrounded by turbines. The cruelty behind allowing these turbines to continue to run is unbelievable.

      1. rah

        In both Canada and the US I see schools which have a wind turbine on their grounds. Along the NY Toll way (I-90) there is a wind turbine collocated with some of the toll stations and at most of the interstate maintenance facilities. In Findlay, OH where I go sometimes to pick up loads of new cans or lids from a Ball Corporation facility where they have a large plant and two large separate warehouses they have a line of wind turbines right behind their buildings that Ball apparently paid for to look “green”.

  8. mothcatcher

    I’m not defending the wind industry, or indeed any renewables! But criticism has to be informed, and reasonable.

    The connection made here is tenuous and unsupported by anything more than very suspicious minds. Okay, could be guilty, but the evidence is not presented. Nor is the motive explained. And it devalues the sceptic position to pursue it. Plenty of other material to get your teeth into if, like me, you believe that wind energy is a very, very expensive fad. I would think that ‘crony capitalism’ and the complicity of our legislators, is a good place to look, and I am waiting for all those investigative journalists to turn their spotlight upon it. Plenty of very bad stuff there.

    1. Yonason

      @mothcatcher

      “But criticism has to be informed, and reasonable.”

      Agreed 100%.

      But it’s not as if we don’t have evidence that they are capable of such criminal mischief.
      https://notrickszone.com/2016/07/16/i-could-throw-up-wind-power-mafia-clandestinely-destroys-rare-stork-nests-to-clear-way-for-turbines/

      And we already know for certain that they have no problem with their turbines killing birds and bats by the thousand. Given the financial gain involved, there is clearly a motive, as well. On the other hand, if they were ever caught, that would jeopardize the whole project, so that’s a significant disincentive. It’s just a matter of which competing motive wins, when walking away will surely result in a substantial loss for them.

      In any case, I think they are worth suspecting. But thanks for the additional information. Personally, my sympathies are with the locals in both cases: 1) eliminating animal predators and 2) preventing human predators from destroying their lives.

  9. RAH

    I live in the country in Indiana among the corn and soybean fields and Angus cattle for a reason. And neither I nor my neighbors will allow those monstrosities to invade the land we Love.

    Last night we had my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter for a couple hours. This is white tail deer country and a yearling and doe came in within 10 meters of my house to feed on seed that had fallen to the ground from my bird feeder. Then a minute later a magnificent 8 point buck followed them in. It was a first for my granddaughter and she thought she was seeing her first reindeer! No way we were going to correct her.

    1. Yonason

      @RAH

      “I live in the country in Indiana among the corn and soybean fields…”

      LOL – I have family in Indiana, and know that corn and soy is everywhere outside the cities, even just a few blocks away. Built up neighborhoods on one side of the street, and miles of corn on the other, with soy not far away.

      You do know there’s an Azteca corn milling plant in Evansville, where they turn that corn into …uh … whatever they turn it into?

      Oh, and how about coyotes and bobcats? When visiting I could hear the coyotes howling at night, and a neighbor told us there were also bobcats. And that wasn’t far from town, either.

      Stay safe, and enjoy the woods. I prefer the coyotes howling to a wind turbine any day or night of the week. (But I could do without the smell of pig manure in the spring, even though it makes the crops grow well.)

      1. rah

        Coyotes and foxes. No bobcat sign in evidence in my vicinity. Lets put it this way. At night before we let our Cocker Spaniel out to do her business on the lead, we walk out and check. Several dogs in the neighborhood have been taken by Coyotes during the winter when the going gets tough for them.

        I love having the deer around. No undergrowth so ticks are a minimal worry. The only downside is that they chew the bark off of newly planted maple and oaks in the back field during the winter and can kill them.

        1. Yonason

          Yeah, can’t live with nature can’t live without her. Ain’t she beautiful! //:-o)

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