Estimated golden eagle mortality from wind turbines in the western United States

Wind power is increasingly meeting global renewable energy demands; however, more turbines leads to increased bird-turbine collisions, particularly raptors, which can negatively impact populations. We estimated annual turbine mortalities of the federally-protected golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) in the western United States (2013–2024) with a Bayesian collision risk model (CRM). We used eBird relative abundance data to predict areas where golden eagles are at lower or higher risk of turbine collisions and turbine data from the U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Wind Turbine Database. From 2013 to 2024, estimated turbine hazardous volume in the lower- and higher-risk zone increased by 198 % and 119 %, respectively. We used golden eagle data from wind energy developments in the western United States to create prior-probability distributions for exposure in the lower- (n = 8) and higher-risk (n = 36) zones and collision probability (n = 21). Mean (± SD) risk of golden eagle exposure to turbines (eagle-mins·hr−1·km−3) in the higher-risk zone (1.557 ± 2.265) was >11 times that in the lower-risk zone (0.138 ± 0.162). Annual median [80 % credible interval] golden eagle mortalities predicted from the CRM more than doubled from 110 [28–374] in 2013 to 270 [72–877] in 2024, although estimates had high uncertainty. Anthropogenic mortality is the primary cause of death in adult golden eagles and recent trends indicate their population may be declining. If the current rate of growth of the wind energy industry continues, it could have conservation implications for golden eagle and other raptor populations.