By Gord Christmas, Simcoe Reformer
Unlike many of his uber-urban contemporaries Toby Barrett is a country boy and when it comes to the land and what lives on it he knows whereof he speaks. His demand to find out who gave the order for the removal of a bald eagles nest near Fisherville is to be applauded. It was inevitable of course, when you pit feather and bone against a turbine blade 45-metres long, the blade wins. And if the blade belongs to big energy the deal is cinched.

It doesn’t take a master’s in quantum physics to predict the grim result of anchoring a mega-fan in the path of migrating birds. The bald eagle of course doesn’t flee south for the winter but maybe it should. I suspect the noise alone from the grey monoliths is enough to mess up its’ breeding cycle. We haven’t done the eagle any favours. First we poisoned them with pesticides, rendering their eggs tissue-paper thin and moronic trophy hunting poachers got into the act until the birds were all but liquidated. (Some First Nation peoples on the other hand hold the eagle feather to be sacred but they don’t kill the bird to get it.)

One day last summer I was mowing the weeds in the paddock and looked up to see four of them, two adults and two fledglings. Knowing they are back, even in a fragile state is comforting. Just as the eagle thought it was safe to take to the air again we introduce wind turbines. I am as “green” as grass but I have to wonder where the converging lines of a need for alternative power and business (read greed) meet. My cynical side tells me that when big energy meets big bird the latter is at a distinct disadvantage. Read article