Southern Scotland Golden Eagle Project and Wind Farms

Sadly, SSGEP has reported today that a Golden Eagle has died after a wind turbine strike in Dumfries and Galloway.

The project, which monitors and researches the Golden Eagle population in the area, has attracted considerable public and private funding and united landowners and conservation groups in the laudable aim of producing many more breeding pairs of these magnificent apex predators. So far so good – but it has been noticed that Golden Eagles avoid wind farms like the plague.

Like similar projects in the north, released juvenile eagles carry a satellite tag on their back which provides accurate data on their movements.

Unsurprisingly, data from SSGEP shows that birds demonstrate similar avoidance measures. In simple terms, the birds will normally avoid flying within 500 metres of a wind turbine and their hunting range is therefore diminished by the area of the wind farm and a considerable area around it.

This diminution of habitat is exacerbated by the cumulative effect of wind farm proliferation in the uplands. In the Highlands it could be argued that there is sufficient space and suitable habitat for eagles to move elsewhere when stymied by a new wind farm but in Southern Scotland the situation is very different. Golden Eagles largely stick to the Southern Uplands, a relatively narrow band of hills which stretches from the Lammermuirs in the East to Dumfriesshire in the West. Much of the eagles’ favoured habitat in these hills is already compromised by vast Sitka Spruce plantations (which provide sparse rations) and current wind farms (which provide large ‘no-go’ areas despite potentially rich food supplies).

The aim of SSGEP is to multiply eagle numbers in Southern Scotland but displaced birds cannot just find somewhere else to go in this region because they are running out of suitable habitat. To Scottish Government ministers, tackling climate change and selling subsidised wind energy to England appears to take precedence over biodiversity enhancement, so the people who have worked tirelessly for this hugely successful reintroduction project, often braving winter storms to capture and tag juvenile eagles in the Highlands and bring them south, cannot object to a new wind farm application even though they know it will be hugely damaging to their project.

NatureScot who are supposed to lead on conservation issues, will only object, or allow SSGEP to object, to a wind farm application on an eagle related issue if there is a breeding pair nesting or trying to nest in the area. The trouble is that Golden Eagles don’t usually try and breed until their fourth or fifth year so, at the moment, very few of the young SSGEP eagles are taken into consideration when wind farm applications are considered – because they are too immature.

Satellite telemetry shows that the most important eagle habitat in Southern Scotland is on or near upland sporting estates where there is a plentiful food supply, particularly the eastern end of the Moorfoot Hills and the Lammermuir Hills.

With dwindling traditional estate revenue, some landowners in these areas are attracted by the vast potential revenue stream from wind while some small communities are given generous handouts to encourage them to support development, leading to a blizzard of applications. If current wind farm applications succeed because the voices of those most able to express concerns and objections are silenced, many of the young eagles will either go North to the Highlands where there are plenty already, or South into the Cheviot Hills, Lake District and Pennines of England where they will be welcomed (by most) with open arms. It begs the question – what on earth was the point of the Southern Scotland Golden Eagle Project in the first place?

Why spend a fortune of public/private/lottery money and then ensure that it doesn’t achieve its potential?

Renewable energy production is important but wind farms should only be built where landscape, biodiversity and community interests are not badly impacted. Those who have dedicated their lives to this complex and important work for the last five or six years have every right to be angry.