Recent Inter Lake eagle article lacked all of the facts

The Daily Inter Lake published an anti-hunting tirade on its front page recently that was authored by the AP. The sob story mentioned 38 out of 336 bald eagle deaths over a 15 year period in New York were due to lead poisoning blamed on hunters and no other source. A source in Oregon was quoted as having lost two bald eagles so far this year due to lead poisoning. The hit piece goes on to discuss banning lead ammunition.

Propaganda typically leaves out key information as it is geared to sway the ignorant, gullible, or in kinder words “the low information voter.” All one has to do is google “number of bald eagles killed by wind turbines” to get a more complete story. Within seconds you will find that wind farms, according to a government study, will kill “only” 1.4 million birds per year by 2030. Just one California wind farm killed an estimated average of 114 golden eagles annually but this has added up to 2,900 dead “goldies” since built 25 years ago.

President Obama, before leaving office, authorized wind farms to kill 4,200 bald eagles per year over the next 30 years. The bald eagle population is estimated at 143,000 in the lower 48 and Alaska. The golden eagle population is estimated at only 41,000, therefore, wind farms are not permitted to kill them and if they do their “authorized take be offset by compensatory mitigation.” Meanwhile, if you or I kill one of these eagles our penalty can range up to a $500,000 fine and 2 years in the slammer getting up close and personal with Bubba.

If you are a Democrat, liberal, or progressive apparently you believe it is okay to kill thousands of protected eagles yearly by wind farming but it is a tragedy if an average of 2.5 eagles annually are killed in New York by lead suspected to come from hunters.

Norm Johnson

Polson