Donald Trump. Credit: Bonnie Cash / Pool via CNP / MediaPunch / imago stock&people / Profimedia
American President Donald Trump confused a hawk hit by a wind turbine blade with the eagle, the national emblem of the USA, sharing a photo on his Truth Social platform with the aim of casting doubt on wind energy, one of his favorite targets of criticism, reports AFP and Agerpres.
In that image, a bird of prey can be seen lying at the base of a wind turbine. “The wind turbines are killing all our beautiful eagles!”, the president is emotional in the caption of the photo.
But this photo was taken many years ago in Israel and does not show a “bald eagle”, the symbol bird of the United States of America.
According to AFP; this photo was published in 2017 by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which identifies a falcon and attributes the cliché to the Israeli National Park Service. Hebrew characters are also visible on the trunk of the wind turbine.
The photo was shared on the X platform by an account managed by the White House and the US Department of Energy, which accuses wind farms of uglying the landscape, of high costs and of posing a threat to biodiversity, especially to birds.
Several congressmen, Democrats and Republicans, criticized the distribution of the photos, including the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. “Doesn't Sleeping Don know how to recognize America's emblem?”, the democrat asks on social networks.
The eagle is represented on US stamps, coins and military insignia.
It is recognizable by its white head and large waist, being a common species in North America.
The bird in the image shared by Donald Trump is smaller and dark in color.
Every year in the US, hundreds of thousands of birds die from wind turbines, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, the university stated in 2023 that these deaths “represent only a tiny fraction of birds killed by other causes, such as collisions with buildings or attacks by domestic cats.”
