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Brazil’s Big Cats Under Threat From Wind Farms. Jaguars and pumas face extinction in Brazil’s northeast as the fast-growing wind power industry frightens them off their land
Wall Street Journal ^ | September 17, 2023 | Luciana Magalhaes and Samantha Pearson

Posted on 09/17/2023 12:37:52 PM PDT by karpov

JUAZEIRO, Brazil—Weighing more than 100 pounds, big cats have long reigned over this hot and semi-arid region of Brazil, developing tougher paws for the scorched earth and reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour to bring down wild boar and deer.

But nothing could have prepared for them the 150-foot blades now slicing up the deep blue sky above them.

Jaguars and pumas are facing extinction in the Caatinga, Brazil’s northeastern shrublands, as Europe and China pour investment into wind farms, puncturing the land with vast turbines that are scaring the animals away from the region’s scant water sources.

Particularly sensitive to changes to their habitat, the jaguars and pumas abandon their lairs as soon as construction work on the wind farms begins, said Claudia Bueno de Campos, a biologist who helped found the group Friends of the Jaguars and has tracked the region’s vanishing feline population. They then roam vast distances across the dusty plains in search of new streams and rivers.

The weakest perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region.

The wind power industry has doubled its capacity in Brazil since 2018, setting the country up to be the world’s fourth-biggest producer by 2027 behind China, the U.S. and Germany, according to the Brazilian Wind Power Association, an industry body.

But by helping to solve one problem—climate change—the wind industry risks creating others, warn conservationists. Indigenous groups recently staged protests in Brazil over the installation of turbines on lands they say are rightfully theirs, while environmentalists have also raised concerns that wind farms installed on compacted sand dunes on the northern coast could have damaged underground water reservoirs.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: brazil; renewable; wind
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1 posted on 09/17/2023 12:37:52 PM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

WTF is PETA? Whales, Brazil’s cats, other animals, I’m sure, dying because of this BS.


2 posted on 09/17/2023 12:40:47 PM PDT by peggybac (My will is what I wanted. God's will is what I got.)
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To: karpov

3 posted on 09/17/2023 12:41:10 PM PDT by FLNittany (Autotune is jealous of Karen Carpenter)
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To: karpov

The World is in a Climate Emergency. Pumas need to do their part.


4 posted on 09/17/2023 12:41:50 PM PDT by Huskrrrr (Alinsky, you magnificent Bastard, I read your book!)
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To: karpov

That’s just because there aren’t enough wind farms. If there were a hundred or a thousand times as many windmills the big cats would get used to them and all would be well. Let’s get this started by clear-cutting the Amazon to make way for responsible, sustainable, environmentally-friendly wind farms.


5 posted on 09/17/2023 12:44:56 PM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: karpov

These stupid things are causing far more problems than benefits. I hate them.


6 posted on 09/17/2023 12:45:23 PM PDT by beethovenfan (The REAL Great Reset will be when Jesus returns. )
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To: karpov

I say we take off and nuke the whales from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.


7 posted on 09/17/2023 12:48:09 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (They say "Our Democracy" but they mean Cosa Nostra.)
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To: karpov

on the chart of intersectionality

the tyrannical green new deal

tops all


8 posted on 09/17/2023 12:51:11 PM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
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To: beethovenfan

I know that feeling.


9 posted on 09/17/2023 12:58:32 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: karpov

Unexpected...


10 posted on 09/17/2023 12:58:43 PM PDT by cockroach_magoo (“Sure we’ll have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascism movement.”  - Huey Long)
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To: beethovenfan

Nuclear is by far the best way to go as it generates the most with the least overall cost. Its biggest problem is too many elites are making too much money on solar and wind. In the end if government is promoting something it’s all about the money.


11 posted on 09/17/2023 1:03:00 PM PDT by Rlsau1
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To: karpov

Well, what can you expect from Brazil. They “elect” a piece of commie trash who promptly hounds his conservative opponent out of the country and into jail.
Sound familiar?

Winds farms are virtue signaling and money laundering for the CCP — a cut comes right back to every politico who voted for them.


12 posted on 09/17/2023 1:09:02 PM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: bobbo666

“We have to destroy the environment to save it.”


13 posted on 09/17/2023 1:12:33 PM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: karpov

We can’t have dams or irrigation because of snail darters, but windmills killing Jaguars and Pumas, no problem for the enviro whackos. The hypocrisy of the Left is staggering.


14 posted on 09/17/2023 1:15:30 PM PDT by redangus
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To: peggybac

Orders of magnitude more people will die due to climate change policy than any change in the natural climate.


15 posted on 09/17/2023 1:18:26 PM PDT by Dutch Boy (The only thing worse than having something taken from you is to have it returned broken. )
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To: karpov

Too bad for Jaguars and pumas and all kinds of whales and birds of prey seeing their demise via windmills as long as the Greeniacs are happy with AOC’s and their “Green Screw Deal” .


16 posted on 09/17/2023 1:24:39 PM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: beethovenfan
" These stupid things are causing far more problems than benefits"

The blades are a problem too. They are difficult to dispose of, cause even more damage.

Truth be known, the people who came up with this, don't care about the the planet.

They're making money, that's their only concern. Big cats, birds, whales exc...being harmed don't matter to them.

17 posted on 09/17/2023 1:31:03 PM PDT by Pajamajan (Pray for our nation. Never be slave in a new Socialist Americ a)
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To: karpov

Losing all jaguars of no importance compared to losing the spotted owl


18 posted on 09/17/2023 1:34:51 PM PDT by sopo
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To: karpov

Funny how the big bucks hang out by the pumpjacks in East tx.


19 posted on 09/17/2023 1:35:35 PM PDT by waterhill (I Believe!)
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To: karpov

the perfect liberal dilemma...should be worth a few hundred million worth of grants from somebody...


20 posted on 09/17/2023 1:36:26 PM PDT by mo ("If you understand, no explanaheytion is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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