Bald eagle deaths resulting from collisions with wind turbines has prompted U.S. Forest Service researchers to capture and outfit half-a-dozen of the birds with GPS transmitters that will allow the scientists to study bald eagle behavior.
"For reasons still not clear to scientists, eagles are vulnerable to collisions with wind turbines, and in some areas such collisions can be a major source of the bird’s mortality," Robert Westhover of the United States Department of Agriculture blog wrote in announcing that GPS devices had been fitted to the birds.
The scientists are using solar-powered transmitters that look like "tiny bird backpacks" to study the wind turbine problem, the USDA added.
The USDA announced the bald eagle project on the same day that an anti-Occupy Wall Street group called "Occupy Occupy DC" called attention to the bird deaths caused by wind turbines. "If I was a bird, I'd be an angry bird right now," the group's executive director, David Almasi, said today in a statement. "Countless innocent birds that only want to be with their eggs die every year from crashing into wind turbines. The environmentalists who promote wind energy at the expense of the birds are green pigs!"
