But the US President has thrown caution to the wind by accusing windmills of killing American bald eagles in a social media post.
The US president posted an image of a dead bird beneath a wind turbine on the social platform, Truth, with the caption: ‘Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!’
With more than 7k ReTruths and 19.1k likes, news of Trump’s towering foe spun around, especially after an official White House account shared it on X.
However, a closer look at the photo reveals that the bird does not have the distinctive markings of a bald eagle.
Instead of the national bird, it was a falcon.
Not only was the bird’s breed misidentified, but the animal was also not photographed on American soil.
In an apparent rush to post the image on social media, Trump overlooked that his new foe, the spinning menace, appears to have Hebrew writing on it.
The photograph was taken by Hedy Ben Eliahou, an employee of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority.
A 2017 report in Haaretz, the Tel Aviv news outlet, features the image with the caption: ‘A falcon killed by a wind turbine in Israel.’
Importance of bald eagles in the US
In 1782, the bald eagle was added to the Great Seal of the United States (the official emblem of US sovereignty).
However, it was not until 2024 that the bald eagle was officially made the national bird of the US, after President Joe Biden signed a law bestowing the honour upon the bird of prey.
The bald eagle has been seen as a symbol of strength, courage, freedom, and immorality for generations.
Unlike other eagles, the bald eagle was indigenous only to North America.
The symbolic animal is protected under the National Emblem Act of 1940, which makes it illegal to sell or hunt the bird.
Bald eagles were once at risk of extinction, but the population has increased since 2009.
This breed of bird is not actually hairless, the term ‘bald’ comes from an older meaning of the word, when it meant white-headed.
In the wild, they can live up to 25 years, and can live for more than 40 years in captivity.
The newspaper added that wind turbines in Israel kill about two dozen birds a year.
Concerns about the death toll at the time prompted an eagle-breeding program to campaign against a plan to build a wind turbine farm in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
So, while yes, the windmill did kill a bird, it was not a bald eagle and was not even on American soil.
This is not the first time Trump has attacked windmills as he has previously accused them of killing whales and causing cancers – both of which have been debunked.
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