AKA: Dodgy data used to lie about wind turbines and denigrate eagle research.
I stumbled across a link to the following blog post the other day ( http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/scotland-s-disappearing-golden-eagles-have-same-wind-energy-story ). It purports to be the truth about Scottish Golden Eagle numbers but in reality just appears to be a bit of anti wind turbine propaganda. The author (a Mr Jim Wiegand) was so rude about the research he quoted and his post made so little sense from what I know about golden eagles in Scotland that I decided to dig a bit deeper. Unlike the author I’m not claiming ‘eagle expert’ status but I know a bit about them, particularly in Scotland and I certainly know how to read and evaluate some scientific papers.
Since the writer seems keen to promote his bit of ‘investigative research’ around the web along with childishly calling much more accurate analysis ‘rigged’, ‘fraudulent’ and ‘ridiculous’, (among other things) I decided that it would be useful to point out the massive flaw in his claim just in case anyone was thinking of taking him seriously.
So, what’s the problem? Well, his main argument is that 80% of Scotland’s golden eagles have disappeared from the regions with wind turbine developments. Now if you live in Scotland and know much about eagles, or indeed wind farm locations then you’ll immediately be wondering exactly what does he mean.
Well this self declared “eagle expert” has apparently read a 2014 report that claims 2-5 eagle pairs are present in Southern Scotland and he handily provides a map from the report to show the area in question (delineated as pretty much everything on the mainland south of a line from Greenock to Clydebank, through Glasgow to Falkirk and then along the south coast of the Firth of Forth). So far so good, anyone who knows Scotland and eagles will be aware that there are, or have been, at best only handful of eagles living in that area on and off in recent times, So what’s the problem? Well, he then claims that in 1992 there were 68 pairs of nesting eagles there thus his claim of a massive decline (WTF?), anyone who knows about Scotland and eagles will be aware that this is nonsense; so the question is how does he come to this conclusion?
Well first things first, he’s fairly cagey about referencing the 2014 report, he provides a link to a 2016 RSPB news report, but that is now a dead link. So a bit of googling reveals that the report is actually Fielding and Haworth (2014) and is an SNH commissioned report available here: http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/commissioned_reports/626.pdf
So how has he come to the conclusion that this report is misrepresenting/hiding a massive collapse in eagle numbers? Well surprisingly his blog actually shows why his conclusion/claim is wrong even if he either hasn’t noticed or is deliberately ignoring it.
It seems to arise from a comparison he makes with a figure taken from an older paper. This is a paper published by Rhys Green in Bird Study on the 1992 golden eagle survey (Green 1996). The blog post shows a map from the 2014 Fielding and Haworth report of the area in question (Southern Scotland), it then shows a map from Green’s 1996 paper and refers to ‘area G’ which Mr Wiegand has taken to be the same area of South Scotland. HOWEVER (and this is the important bit). It is clear from both maps that the areas are not the same: I.e. while the 1996 paper includes all of the ’Southern Scotland’ area in the recent 2014 RSPB report it also includes Fife, Argyll, all of the area right up to Glen Coe taking in Rannoch Moor and all the associated mountains in between and around, it also covers Arran, Islay and Jura and a few smaller islands. Forget Fife as there are no golden eagles in Fife, but if you know anything about eagles and Scotland then you will be well aware that Argyll, Islay, Jura and the mountains around Glen Coe, Loch Etive, Rannoch Moor, Crianlarich and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs contain quite a few golden eagles, easily 60+ ‘missing’ pairs.
It's almost as if he knows absolutely nothing about Scotland and its eagle distribution and has not a clue about the importance of that bit of missing land in the second report. There are almost certainly more golden eagles breeding on Jura alone than in the entire South of Scotland area, same for Islay, but Mr Wiegand appears oblivious to this and then goes on to blame wind farms for this non-existent collapse in Southern Scotland’s eagles, drawing comparisons with a similar collapse in Californian golden eagles that he then blames the Audubon society for ‘covering up’ and claims the RSPB is doing the same for Scottish data! I have no idea if California has suffered such a population collapse, but based on this sample of Mr Wiegand's ‘investigative research’ I’d recommend if you want to find out then use a different source of information!
As for wind farms, well Southern Scotland has quite a few, but then so does a lot of Western Scotland and there's plenty of eagles there . But for anyone who is puzzling why there are so few eagles (regardless of year) in some parts of Scotland the answer is much more likely to involve illegal use of pesticides by people with other management priorities, rather than wind turbines.
It’s tempting to give Mr Wiegand the benefit of the doubt and assume it is a genuine mistake, However given his rather rude comments on the research of others and his somewhat dubious claim to be an “eagle expert” (if the quality and accuracy of his blog post is any guide) I conclude that on balance he probably deserves being called out on this. As far as I can see, there only a few explanations for such a huge innacuracy. He is either spectacularly ill-informed and too lazy to improve his level of understanding about Scotland and its golden eagles even though he clearly has the information to hand, or he is unable to understand the information right in front of him; or maybe he’s just a biased liar deliberately misrepresenting the data, who knows!. He can choose which is the most accurate explanation of his conclusion, I suppose a cynic might suggest he could be all three! And if you think that’s unfair, well he has been just as rude about the dedicated people undertaking and reporting on Scottish golden eagle surveys so frankly he deserves it.
You may well ask, who is this Wiegand chap anyway? Well he seems to be a blogger with a real anti wind farm stance, He’s very keen on childish name calling directed at people and organisations involved in wind power or who conduct research that conflict with his views (http://www.windtaskforce.org/profile/JimWiegand). Now I have no strong opinion on wind power, I’m neither pro nor anti. However I am very much anti bad science and anti biased reporting of science and anti manipulating of scientific data so that’s why I’m calling him out. Oh, and if you look at his webpage you may get a hint as to why he might not understand what is going on with Scottish eagle populations or the relevance of the missing area on the map… he lives in California, not that that is any excuse because one would hope he could still read a map and take the time to do some proper research before drawing his conclusion.
References:
Fielding, A.H. and Haworth, P.F. (2014) Golden eagles in the south of Scotland: an overview. Scottish Natural Heritage Commissioned Report No. 626.
Green R.E. (1996) The status of the Golden Eagle in Britain in 1992. Bird Study 43, 20-27
Wiegand J. (2017) Scotland’s disappearing golden eagles have California's same fraudulent wind energy story. Blog post from Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power-Maine.
