Impacts on Other Animals

8/26/23
New documentary ‘proves’ building offshore wind farms does kill whales
New York Post, Michael Shellenberger
The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say. But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by director and producer Jonah Markowitz, which I executive produced, proves that the US government officials have been lying. There appear to be at least two distinct mechanisms by which wind industry activities are killing whales. The first is through boat traffic in areas where there hasn’t historically been traffic. The second is through high-decibel sonar mapping that can disorient whales, separate mothers from their calves, and send them into harm’s way, either into boat traffic or poorer feeding grounds. “Thrown To The Wind” exposes the reality that the U.S. government agencies and the scientists who work for them either haven’t done the basic mapping and acoustic research to back up their claims, have done the research badly, or found what we found and are covering it up. 

11/12/2018
Wind Farms Act Like Apex Predators on Ecosystems, Study Finds
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-11-05-predator-birds-wind-turbines-lizards/
weather.com
Ron Brackett
When the number of predatory birds is reduced by the presence of industrial wind turbines, the population of their prey may show an increase. A study published by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore found that fan-throated lizard populations exploded near wind turbines in the Western Ghats, a mountain range along India’s west coast.

7/15/2017
Windfarm group ready for battle
The Corkman
Maria Herlihy
https://www.independent.ie/regionals/corkman/news/windfarm-group-ready-for-battle-35924952.html
Portuguese scientist Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira discussed the effects of turbines on animal and human health and is an expert on infra-sound – the energy created by sound which humans cannot hear, and low frequency noise, the sound generated by wind turbines. She told the seminar of the evidence of health damage to horses, sheep, pigs, mink and geese, which she said had been “adversely affected” by proximity to windfarms in her native Portugal.

5/18/2017
Wind turbine war for turtles, and ourselves
Toronto Sun
Jim McPherson, special to the Toronto Sun
Last month, an Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) ruled the White Pines wind energy project must be reduced from 27 turbine sites to nine because proposed mitigations were insufficient to protect Blanding’s turtles.