Wind turbines kill birds, and checking flight paths first is voluntary

Wind turbines kill birds, and checking flight paths first is voluntary

Wind turbines kill birds, and the money now moving into renewable power does nothing on its own to change where a turbine gets built. The International Energy Agency puts worldwide renewable power investment at about 665 billion dollars for 2026, with more than 365 billion of that in solar alone, in a report the agency published in May 2026. None of that spending requires a developer to study where birds actually fly across a site before construction starts.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service runs a review process meant to catch a bad site before it is built. Its Land Based Wind Energy Guidelines lay out a process of 5 tiers, each one a stage a developer works through, starting with a review of the wider landscape around a proposed site and ending with counting bird deaths after construction is finished. Tier 3 is the stage that would actually record where birds cross the site. The agency states plainly that following the guidelines, including that field study, is voluntary, and that a developer still has to obey other wildlife laws regardless. The guidelines also state that not every tier has to be used on every project. A company can build first and find out where the birds were only after the deaths start.

Solar alone drew more money in 2026 than every other renewable source combined. Subtracting the 365 billion dollar solar figure from the 665 billion dollar renewable total, an arithmetic MAOWCE performed rather than a number the agency states directly, leaves about 300 billion dollars for wind, hydropower and every other renewable technology combined.

The clearest record of what happens when planning fails

The clearest record of what happens when that review is skipped sits in California. The Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area went up in 1982 with 5,400 turbines built directly inside a major corridor used by migrating raptors, birds of prey such as hawks and eagles. The Center for Biological Diversity calls this plainly poor planning, and says it put turbines in an area with high wintering concentrations of raptors and in the heart of the highest concentration of golden eagles in North America. Wind power first had a published study of the raptor death toll in 1988, 6 years after the turbines went up.

Regulators did not recommend siting turbines to avoid that corridor until years after the death toll was already documented. A 2002 report for the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power agency, describes what the delay cost the industry.

In the mid 1990s, development of wind projects were delayed, sometimes to a point that the project was not developed, due in part to avian collision concerns.

A 2002 report prepared for the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power agency, quoted in a Center for Biological Diversity fact sheet on Altamont Pass. Source 4.

A separate 2002 California Energy Commission report states that Alameda County, the local government with permitting power over Altamont Pass, would not approve any increase to the existing permitted capacity until significant progress toward solving the bird fatality issue was demonstrated.

Newer turbines traded one bird problem for another

The fix that followed traded one bird problem for another. The original Altamont turbines spun fast, sat low to the ground, and used open, lattice style towers birds could easily perch on, a mix source 5 says made those older turbines especially dangerous to perching birds. Modern replacement turbines are taller and more sparsely spaced, built to stop birds from perching, but the added height puts the blades directly in the path of birds that fly higher and further.

Between a quarter to half a million birds are killed by the new, larger turbines each year.

Scott Loss, an ecologist at Oklahoma State University. Source 5.

None of the 665 billion dollars now moving into renewable power in 2026 is tied to closing that gap.