Former US President Donald Trump has reignited his long-standing campaign against wind power, but his latest salvo appears to be based on a significant geographical and zoological error.
A Viral Post Sparks Outrage
While at his Florida resort, Trump took to social media to share an image of a dead bird lying beneath a large wind turbine. Late on Tuesday, he posted the picture with the caption: “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!” The message was swiftly amplified by an official White House account on X, which boasts over a million followers.
The post was clearly intended to stoke anger among his supporters over the perceived threat wind energy poses to America's national bird. However, a closer examination of the photograph reveals a different story entirely.
The Facts Behind the Image
Investigations show the image does not depict a bald eagle, nor was it taken in the United States. The photograph actually shows a falcon killed at a wind farm in Israel eight years ago.
Trump's haste to post the image seemingly led him to overlook two critical visual clues. Firstly, the bird lacks the distinctive white head and tail feathers of an adult bald eagle. Secondly, the base of the turbine blamed for the bird's death features what appears to be Hebrew writing.
Origins in Israeli Environmental Concerns
A review of Israeli media reports confirms the image was taken by Hedy Ben Eliahou, an employee of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority. It was featured in a 2017 report in Haaretz, the Tel Aviv-based newspaper.
Had Trump or aides from any of the 18 US intelligence agencies that report to a sitting president traced the source, they would have found Israeli authorities do share concerns about wind energy's impact on wildlife. The Haaretz report stated: “Wind turbines cause significant damage to bird and bat life in Israel, beyond the level deemed tolerable by nature authorities.”
The article added that Israeli wind turbines were responsible for killing about two dozen birds annually. These concerns were significant enough that, at the time, zoos operating an eagle-breeding programme campaigned against a proposed wind farm in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They acted “for fear of harm to the already seriously endangered vulture population there.”
This incident highlights how quickly misinformation can spread on social media, even from high-profile accounts, when basic fact-checking steps are overlooked. The conflation of a falcon in Israel with a bald eagle in the US underscores the global nature of both the renewable energy debate and the viral spread of content.
