The Center for Biological Diversity, an eco advocacy group, is suing a collection of companies who operate a windmill farm in California. Their claim is that “the windmills have killed thousands of golden eagles, western burrowing owls and red-tailed hawks which flock to the wind-swept canyon along Altamont pass some 50 miles east of San Francisco.” But you can tell that they are morally torn about filing the suit. As Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the group explains, “We are an environmental group and absolutely support alternative energy. It is just in this case it is the worst location in North America in terms of killing birds of prey. ”
I guess I’m not quite clear on this. Is the problem that these bird Cuisinarts are killing birds of prey and that it would be ok to kill other kinds of birds, or is he implying that it would be ok to kill some birds of prey but just not this many? Since all windmill farms are going to kill some number of birds I think he needs to explain what the right “bird blood for oil” tradeoff is.
