According to the League for the Protection of Birds, wind projects on La Boulaine threaten nesting harriers and red kites

La LPO est notamment inquiète pour les busards cendrés. Midi Libre – MONIQUE RAYNAUD

L’association a notamment aux services de l’État pour les alerter.

Several wind farm projects on the Boulaine threaten nesting harriers, according to the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO). The latter sent a letter to the prefect to inform and alert him. Wind farm development projects in Lozère are mainly concentrated on the Margeride. Projects currently being examined in the Boulaine sector (Mende, Gabrias, Lachamp and Servières…) worry the LPO Occitanie.

Nine pairs in the Boulaine sector

The Lozère territorial delegation of the association is monitoring certain species of birds of prey that are sensitive to wind farms, following reports of fatal collisions with moving blades. These include the Red Kite, which benefits from a national action plan validated by government services, as well as the Hen and Montagu's harriers.

This monitoring allows us to note the presence of a core of at least four breeding pairs of Hen Harriers and at least five breeding pairs of Montagu's harriers in the Boulaine area and nearby. During the breeding season, males hunt several kilometres from the nest. They move by regularly crossing the Boulaine ridge (field observations).

The Hen Harrier is also threatened. Midi Libre – MONIQUE RAYNAUD

Protected species

Also according to the League for the Protection of Birds, these protected species listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive (and classified as vulnerable in Europe concerning the Hen Harrier) are experiencing a pronounced decline in the recent period in France and Europe. The Hen Harrier has lost more than 50% of its numbers in France in two decades and its decline is estimated at minus 17% in Europe in 20 years (European Atlas of Breeding Birds).

On the scale of Lozère, the population of the Hen Harrier is estimated at between ten and fifteen breeding pairs; that of the Montagu's Harrier, between twenty and thirty breeding pairs. Respectively a third and a quarter of their departmental population would therefore be affected by these wind farms, either by collision with the blades, or by loss of nesting sites and/or hunting grounds.

Two documented cases of mortality of Red Kites

The LPO points out that these birds of prey mainly consume small rodents (up to 2,500 micromammals for a family of harriers during the breeding season). The Red Kite, a major consumer of mole rats, also nests in this area. Two cases of Red Kite mortality on wind farms have been documented in Lozère. Knowing that most of the corpses under wind turbines disappear very quickly under the action of scavengers, these two cases should be considered as a fraction of a mortality that is very likely much higher.

The LPO therefore reacted by alerting the State services in charge of these files, “so that the development of wind farms in Lozère is not synonymous with the destruction of habitats and protected and vulnerable species”.