| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Real benefits or just PR?
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Introducing a few mountain hares near Beinn an Tuirc wind farm, at a cost of £30 each, is certainly a cost-effective way of getting good publicity for ScottishPower (your report, 24 March), but the question is will it do anything for the resident pair of golden eagles?
In visual terms, Beinn an Tuirc is a very well-located wind farm. However, it is perilously close to a golden eagle nest site and, despite ScottishPower’s best efforts, and commendably it has spent over £2 million on the initial “habitat management” clearing forest and introducing black grouse, the resident eagles have never successfully reared a chick since the wind farm was erected six years ago. There is no direct evidence of eagle fatalities at Beinn an Tuirc, but at least nine white-tailed eagles have been killed by wind turbines on the Norwegian island of Smola.
Put simply, a well-located wind farm poses little danger to rare birds, but I have seen no evidence to suggest mitigation is effective, except of course in generating good PR.
ALAN STOBIE, Achavit, Tarbert, Argyll
25 March 2008
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
| Wind Watch relies entirely on User Contributions |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=11978 ]
