Birdlife Switzerland published a picture of a decapitated golden eagle on Tuesday. He flew into a rotor blade of a turbine at the Mont-Soleil wind farm in the Bernese Jura. The organization suspects that the adult eagle belonged to the pair that regularly nested around the Chasseral.
It is the first time that such a case has been documented in Switzerland. Birdlife Switzerland warns that the incident will repeat itself in the future. In the USA, such collisions are even the most common cause of death for golden eagles.
Paradoxically, the death of the animal in the Jura shows that bird protection works in Switzerland. In the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, humans hunted carnivorous wild animals. The number of golden eagles dwindled threateningly, the bearded vulture was exterminated in 1913, red kites and eagle owls were on the verge of extinction. “The understanding of nature was very different back then,” says biologist Livio Rey (31) from the Sempach ornithological station. “It was believed that the predators would wipe out other species, such as marmots or deer.” It was only later that people realized that the relationships in nature were more complex. Because hunting animals are dependent on their prey and therefore do not exterminate them.
Kills arranged until the 1960s
A change in society gradually took place, the image of the evil bird of prey began to change. Thanks to the hunting protection introduced in 1926, several species were able to spread again – but the golden eagle has only been protected since 1953. Nevertheless, up until the 1960s there were occasional official eagle shootings that were justified with the protection of sheep. Ornithologists have been more optimistic about the number of eagles in Switzerland for around 40 years.
Today around 360 couples are circling in the sky in the Swiss Alps. “The stock was able to recover from the intense persecution,” says Rey. Since almost every available territory in the Alps is occupied by a pair, the young birds began to look for new habitats. In 2009, the golden eagle nested in the Jura for the first time in 200 years.
Although the dead bird under the turbine is also a sign of functioning bird protection, Rey regrets the incident. Because the population in the Jura is still very small. And for species that usually only raise one young bird per year, the death of a single specimen is a severe setback.