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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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President Donald Trump shared another photo Friday of a bird dead beneath wind turbines, incorrectly claiming it to be an eagle.
The picture, posted on Truth Social, was captioned “Eagles going down!”, but the image shows a red kite in Spain.
Why It Matters
The president has long complained that wind turbines pose a danger to birds, specifically the bald eagle, and has called for offshore wind farms if necessary to protect the birds. Multiple fact checks have debunked Trump’s claims.
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What To Know
Trump’s latest post was part of a trio shared Friday, with one showing dozens of birds flying around a turbine with the caption “killing birds by the millions!” The other was a link to a Fox News article from November about eagles being knocked out of the sky.
The photo of the Red Kite has been shared across multiple news stories and blogs in recent years, including one from Wyoming's Cowboy State Daily in 2023, which examined concerns about federal rule changes that year that could threaten eagles, and another from The Telegraph in 2011, which examined why birds crash into turbines.
The post on Friday came after a flurry of criticism on Tuesday, when Trump posted a different photo of a dead bird in front of a windmill, which read: "Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!"
Again, the bird was not a bald eagle, and the photo appeared to have been taken in Israel in 2017, rather than in the United States. Despite this, the image was also shared by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Rapid Response 47 accounts on X.
The Trump administration has said it is taking bold strides to address U.S. energy issues, including moving away from wind and solar power in favor of, in part, coal, which Trump calls good clean energy.
Critics have said the president’s focus on wind turbines and his perception of their deadliness are potential signs that his cognitive health is declining, something he has denied in recent days.
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What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, in an earlier post Friday on Truth Social: “The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in 'PERFECT HEALTH,' and that I 'ACED' (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take.”
The press office for California Governor Gavin Newsom, in a post on X, reacting to Trump's Tuesday photo: "Person, woman, man, camera, eagle."
Elie Bou-Zeid, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, previously told Newsweek: "Wind turbine collisions kill way less birds in the U.S. than domestic cats or building collisions. If he is worried about birds, he should let more Haitian immigrants into the U.S., since he says they eat the cats and the dogs."
What Happens Next
The future of wind farms remains unclear in the U.S., with attempts by the Trump administration to halt construction struck down by a federal judge. The president is likely to maintain his stance that the turbines are deadly.
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