What's really killing those big birds
By The Bakersfield Californian
The March 16 article "Environmental groups petition EPA to ban lead in ammunition" addressed the concern that certain environmental groups have about lead bullets on their potential, unproven effects on California condors, eagles and other scavengers.
I contend, based on the newspaper's reporting, that the wind farms located in the Tehachapi Mountains kill more raptor birds than all the lead bullets in California. Last I read, the tally was more than 60 supposedly federally protected golden eagles and an uncountable number of hawks and falcons have died due to the rotating blades. Why is it the environmental groups and U.S. Fish and Game are ignoring these losses and not shutting down the wind farms until they come up with a fix to stop the slaughter?
We moved to Tehachapi six years ago. At that time, we had golden eagles land and nest in pine trees behind our house in Stallion Springs. They began disappearing when the wind farms started expanding. Now there are no more golden eagles here. Hopefully, a few California condors will be killed by the blades, if they haven't already. Maybe then the environmentalists will come out of their cocoons and gripe about that instead of complaining about a "possible" lead hazard without solid scientific proof.
When will The Californian take the lead to stop the killing of these birds? The Californian needs to press the federal and state EPA as well as U.S. and California Fish and Game to shut down the windmills and force their owners to come up with solutions to stop the deaths of so many birds.
Charles Walters
Tehachapi
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