Bird kills by windmills are overblown. Climate-change, free-range cats and window strikes kill more birds than windmills.
The fossil fuel industry’s propaganda loves to call out windmills for killing birds but the reality is pollution from burning fossil fuels, free-range cats and window strikes kill BILLIONS more birds each year than windmills.
The number of birds killed by wind turbine collisions per year is estimated to be between 150,000 and 500,000, but when you put this number in perspective, it pales in comparison to other causes of bird mortality. For example, free-range cats kill roughly 1 billion birds per year, while collisions with buildings or other “unnatural habitat causes” kill 365 million to 1 billion birds per year. Perhaps most importantly, habitat loss appears to have driven massive declines in bird populations since the 1970s. Windmills became an increasingly popular energy source in the United States in the 1980s following large oil shortages. Since the 1970s, the United States has lost 30% of its entire bird population, accounting for about 3 billion birds, regardless of their species status as common or on the endangered species scale. This population loss has been driven by human activity. Bird deaths caused by windmills account for only 0.01% of cat-related bird deaths.
https://seas.umich.edu/news/climate-change-habitat-loss-and-yes-even-cats-pose-greater-threat-birds-windmills#:~:text=Climate%20change%2C%20habitat%20loss%20(and,threat%20to%20birds%20than%20windmills