It’s not just rightwingers – gannets hate wind farms too | Patrick Barkham

Swooping birds are under threat from wind turbines. Clean energy is good for us, bad for them

A gannet flying low over the ocean is an awesome sight. In a big swell, these brilliant-white seabirds seem to hug the contours of the waves on their epic, effortless-looking quest for fish.

So it is a shock to learn that up to 12 times more gannets could be killed by wind turbines than current figures suggest because GPS devices fitted to gannets have shown they actually fly at an average of 27 metres when searching and diving for prey. Such a height puts them on collision course with the blades of offshore windfarms.

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