“The common buzzard’s advocate”

A regional branch of Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) intends to push for a moratorium on wind power expansion in northern federal states in order to protect birds from being killed by wind turbine blades, David Joram writes in Tageszeitung (taz). According to a species protection study, “half a common buzzard is being killed per year and turbine”, totalling 12,500 dead birds, or the equivalent of five percent of the population every year, Joram explains. NABU therefore argues that a standstill agreement on wind power expansion is necessary to contain the impact on local bird populations. Jan Schüring, NABU’s branch leader for East Frisia, adds that most turbines cannot currently be used in absence of transmission and storage capacities anyway, and calls for tightening the environmental protection rules for the licensing of new turbines.

Read the article in German here.