Bird lovers are slowly waking up to the wind industry’s rampant habitat destruction and mass slaughter of the creatures they love so much.
Wiping out pristine rainforest is met with a shrug by armchair environmentalists; and piles of rotting bird and bat carcasses barely raise an eyebrow among inner-city ‘Greens’. But those who frequent what’s left of Australia’s bird and bat habitat are no longer prepared to give the wind industry the benefit of the doubt. One group, Rainforest Reserves Australia is starting to pay attention to the, wholly unnecessary, bird and bat carnage.
Biodiversity hotspot and birder’s dream no more: Kaban windpower facility repelling the birds it doesn’t kill
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Rainforest Reserves Australia
4 July 2024
Once a biodiversity hotspot and birder’s dream, the construction of the Kaban wind farm appears to have repelled a large number of bird species.
We’ve been going through the 2023 Annual Compliance Report for Kaban wind farm in FNQ, just published. The number of bird species surveyed on the site since 2018 has dropped markedly.
The sheer number of bird species observed in 2018 was huge: 85 species! But by 2023, 1 year after Kaban wind farm became operational, the number of species surveyed was only 39.
Alarmingly, some 50 species have not been observed via Bird and Bat surveys onsite since 2021. Windfarm construction began in June 2021; surveys done in October. This was the last time Brolgas, Red Tailed Black Cockatoos and others were observed in Bird and Bat surveys onsite.
The 1st turbine started turning in Sep 2022. Since then, these dead birds were found *incidentally* onsite: 2 Fork-tailed swifts, 1 Vulnerable White-throated Needletail, 1 Rufous Fantail, 1 Black Faced Monarch. 2 dead Endangered Spectacled Flying Foxes were found near turbines.
Incidental discoveries of carcasses are not the same as carcass surveys. In fact, official Kaban wind farm carcass surveys have not yet been released. Kaban wind farm is an important example of the impact wind farms can have in biodiverse places with rich birdlife.
Wedge-tails have been surveyed at Kaban wind farm site yearly. They fly at Rotar Sweep Area (RSA Height (80 – 255 m) and are likely to die of turbine strike. But the discovery of the dead Needletail, Rufous Fantail, Black Faced Monarch indicates unexpectedly that other birds may fly at the RSA.
The 2023 Annual Compliance Report reveals that Kaban wind farm is killing more birds and bats than anticipated. The original number of ‘high risk’ turbines was considered to be 15. Since then, the number of High Risk turbines has risen to 24 turbines.
It seems to us that overall, loss of bird species at Kaban wind farm site is at least partially due to the recent increase in human activity to construct the wind farm, the heavy vehicles, habitat destruction, then colonisation of aerial space by large turbines and maybe sound of turbines themselves.
We’re interested to learn what ecologists, scientists and bird lovers here think of our analysis of the Kaban wind farm 2023 Annual Compliance Report. If anything we’ve written looks incorrect, please let us know.
The report is available to read here: https://kabangreenpowerhub.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/QEJ21046_FY23_EPBC-Act-Compliance-Report_Rev1_Redacted.pdf
STOP THESE THINGS 
Thank you STT for this article. While offshore turbines and the number of dead whales etc. makes headlines among marine environmentalists, the onshore story is still buried. You’ve invited readers to challenge what you’ve written about bird and bat deaths and destruction of habitat security. From direct experience in Ontario, arm-chair environmentalists and bird lovers would never see this article because they’ve been seriously brainwashed into believing that these onshore turbines are harmless to human beings and wildlife. They believe what the wind industry and their government have told them. The mainstream media has utterly failed to do their job and has been complicit in covering up the truth and silencing people trying to tell it. The narrative they maintain is that these turbines are ’saving the planet’. The only people who know the truth are residents forced to live near them. Having made enormous efforts to report the truth, they’ve now developed ‘learned helplessness’ which is a serious psychological condition. The most tenacious rural residents fear being targeted for reporting the truth. Even the so-called advocates seem to have succumbed to accepting their impotence.
This tragic situation will only end when these turbines are turned off. We must not allow them to keep running until their 20 year contracts run their course. These contracts were signed before any cost/benefit analysis was done. There were no health studies done by the wind industry either.
Thank you STT for your relentless courage!
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