Meet the expert on turbine eagle deaths the wind energy industry turned on
Pat May. April 05, 2024. cowboystatedaily.com
Shawn Smallwood holds a prairie falcon chick getting measured or various conditions. This falcons nested in the nacelle of a derelict wind turbine. (Courtesy Shawn Smallwood)
Back in the late 1990s, ecologist Shawn Smallwood didn’t think much about connecting avian and bat deaths with the whooshing blades of wind turbines.
It was a concept foreign to him.
But then a long-distance jogging partner he worked with at the University of California-Davis asked him to tag along in a “fatality search” with dogs to sniff out dead bird and bat carcasses caused by the thousands of turbines that dot the picturesque Altamont Pass, a low-lying mountainous region located about an hour’s drive east of San Francisco.
“It was a game-changer for me,” said Smallwood, who said his “mapping skills” of predatory birds launched his career, including secretive trips in coming years to Wyoming to provide “technical data” needed in litigation against the wind industry.
https://www-wind--watch-org.translate.goog/news/2024/04/06/meet-the-expert-on-turbine-eagle-deaths-the-wind-energy-industry-turned-on/print/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US
