Bob Brown Foundation expert witnesses Hamish Saul and Shamus Mulcahy gave graphic evidence of the rare Orange-bellied Parrots’ flight path over Robbins Island migrating to and from the mainland to their summer breeding grounds at Melaleuca near Port Davey.
The Tribunal saw a three-dimensional construction of multiple wind turbines and the reach of their blades for the birds flying at 75 metres and 150 metres above the island which is astride their migratory flight path. In the video, the parrots are repeatedly intercepted in their flight by the trajectory of the spinning blades which each reach more than 200 metres in height.
The Tribunal did not accept the wind farm proponent ACEN’s objection to the graphic evidence showing the potential for birds colliding with the blades.
“This is state-of-the-art technology and absolutely riveting and alarming in its implication for the critically-endangered Orange-bellied Parrots, as only 74 remain in the wild at last count. So each one knocked down by a spinning blade would eliminate more than one per cent of the total remaining population,” Bob Brown said outside the Tribunal.
“This wind farm should not go ahead, particularly as the tribunal has heard that there is a line-up of other potential Tasmanian wind farms if this one does not proceed. This project is replaceable but the Orange-bellied Parrots are not.”