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RE: Wind Power and birds (long)




     FYI - I know this discussion got past the immediate issue of Audubon's
position related to the condors at this one site, but for the record, I wanted
to let you know that the National Audubon Society strongly supports the
development of wind power and other alternative energy sources.  However, we
should not support projects that endanger the 49 remaining California condors in
the wild.  Even more important, there are alternatives to the proposed site in
the immediate area, and those alternatives would not endanger the condor.

The proposed site is within a few hundred feet of critical habitat for the
California Condor.  The      critical habitat designation was made over 15 years
ago.  The Enron Corporation proposed this same site 10 years ago and their
permit was denied by a 5-0 vote of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Whatever the larger, more complex issues of turbines and risks to birds in
general, this particular one in California related to the condors seems a clear
case.

Chris Canfield
Director of Development
NC State Office, National Audubon Society
410 Airport Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC  27514
919-929-3899 (phone/fax)
email: ccanfield@audubon.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu> at INTERNET
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 11:11 AM
To: Carolinabirds@duke.edu at INTERNET
Subject: re: Wind Power and birds (long)


Hi Carolinabirders,

I opened up that fact sheet that Linda was having trouble with and pasted
it into an e-mail. The numbers in brackets [1] refer to the list of
references at the end. It's an interesting conflict, and not an easy one
to resolve: do we place priority on protecting Condors, which have
already gone extinct in the wild once and only returned through a
multimillion dollar effort by the US government? Or do we risk the
condor's future for the sake of much larger numbers and diversity of
other birds and even more of non-avian organisms which are not endangered
yet (mostly), but certainly could be soon if we continue using fossil
fuels as our primary energy source? Maybe this whole thing is wind-power
industry propaganda, but they certainly seem to be working a lot harder
to make their facilities bird-friendly than any oil company ever has.
Read and enjoy...

-