TG Daily, there are some incentives:
While the voluntary guidelines don’t carry the big stick of mandatory regulation, they do come with a carrot: DOI suggested that developers found to be in violation of laws and regulations – whose turbines, for instance, kill a protected species – could potentially escape trouble if they can show “documented efforts to communicate with the Service and adhere to the Guidelines.”
Even though the ABC is still dissatisfied with the guidelines, Audubon president David Yarnold supports the guidelines as a compromise and a step in the right direction.
Currently, collisions with wind turbines amount for just a minute portion of all human-related bird deaths. Window collisions cause up to a billion bird deaths a year, oil fields and waste facilities kill about a million and power lines kill up to 174 million.
This seems like a small amount, but as wind energy becomes increasingly popular, those numbers will continue to rise if nothing is done.
Do you think having voluntary guidelines that promote safer construction for birds is enough or should they be mandatory?