Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?

Level: Advanced

1
  Warmer

a. Talk to a partner or in small groups.

• What are the birds in these pictures?

• Do any of them live in your country?

b. Now discuss your answers to the following questions.

• What large wild birds are there in your country?

• Where do they build their nests?

• Do they live there all year round or do they just visit for the summer or winter?
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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced

2
  Key words

a. Write the correct words from the wordpool next to the definitions below. Then find and
highlight them in the article to read them in context.

collide conundrum diminished dwarfed earmarked

locals mitigating obliged pending perished
reclusive safeguarding spot stall stymie

1. notice someone or something

2. living alone and avoiding others

3. chosen to be used for a particular purpose

4. waiting to be dealt with, settled, or completed

5. crash into things

6. a difficult problem that seems to have no solution

7. procedures put in place by organizations and institutions to protect someone or something

8. reducing the harmful effects of something

9. stop making progress

10. people who live in a particular place, rather than visitors to that place

11. stop someone from achieving an aim or stop some process from continuing

12. forced someone to do something because it is the law, a rule, or a duty

13. reduced in amount or size

14. been made to seem small or unimportant

15. died because of something that happened very suddenly

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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced
b. Use some of the key words above to complete these sentences.

1. Be careful – you’re going to with that van!

2. Hundreds of people when the plane crashed.

3. Employers are legally to pay the minimum wage.

4. I think talks are going to . Both sides are preparing for war.

5. The funds have already been for the renovations.

6. I like it here; the are very welcoming.

7. Their chances of survival are greatly because of their poor health.

8. The judge decided not to send her to prison because of the

circumstances.

9. They were released on police bail, further enquiries.

10. I can never someone in a crowd. I’m near-sighted.

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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced
Cameras on turbines being 7 IdentiFlight spent three years testing its
trained to recognize lesser anti-collision systems at six sites across
Germany and says its neural network boasts
spotted eagles, which are success rates of more than 90% for recognizing
endangered in Germany and classifying red kites, the first birds of prey it
Philip Oltermann has been trained in for German territories.
20 September, 2022 8 The technological solution is also meant to
solve a political conundrum for the Green party,
1 Small, sensitive and with only 130 breeding the second-largest party in the three-way
pairs surviving locally in the wild, the lesser coalition government and the driving force
spotted eagle of the Oder Delta lives up to its behind the new nature protection law, by
name. In Germany, key questions over the keeping the peace between those of its
country’s energy future hang on the question of supporters who define ecological politics
whether artificial-intelligence systems can do predominantly as safeguarding biodiversity and
a better job of spotting the reclusive bird than those who prioritize mitigating the climate crisis.
birdwatchers do. 9 Wind energy in Germany underwent a massive
2 Lesser spotted eagles are fond of riding boom after Angela Merkel announced the
thermals over many of the flatlands earmarked phase-out of nuclear power in 2011, with
for a mass expansion of onshore windfarms windfarms currently providing about a quarter
by a German government under pressure of the country’s electricity needs. But the
to compensate for a pending loss of nuclear expansion plans have stalled since 2018,
power, coal plants and Russian gas. at about 30,000 turbines providing just over
60,000 megawatt hours a year.
3 Because lesser spotted eagles in mid-flight are
unused to vertical obstacles, and keep their 10 Wind-power companies complain that
eyes focused on mice, lizards or frog-shaped planning applications take longer and longer,
prey below, conservationists say, they with not only environmentalists but locals
occasionally collide with the rotor blades of opposed to turbines having learned to use
wind turbines. nature-protection laws to stymie their plans.

4 A controversial reform of the Federal Nature 11 Scholz’s government’s intention is to reverse

Conservation Act, pushed through by Olaf the trend: it has plans to increase electricity
Scholz’s coalition government in summer from renewables by 80% over the next eight
2022, slashes red tape around building years and to commit Germany’s 16 federal
windfarms near nesting sites but relies on states to provide 2% of their landmass for wind
AI-driven “anti-collision systems” as one way energy over the next ten. Experts say this
to minimize such accidents. would amount to an additional 16,000 turbines
by 2030, or 38 a week.
5 Software engineers are feeding hundreds of
12 To reach these targets, Germany’s Green-run
thousands of images of the airborne lesser
environmental ministry have drawn up a list of
spotted eagles into an algorithm. Linked to
15 birds at risk of colliding with turbines. Those
a camera system perched atop a ten-metre
animals that did not make the list, such as the
tower, the trained-up neural networks of the US
black stork, cannot be cited to stop a planning
company IdentiFlight are expected to detect
application. But even those that did are now
eagles approaching from a distance of up to
protected to a lesser degree.
750 metres and electronically alert the turbine.
13 Windfarms can in the future be built outside
6 The turbine will then take 20 to 40 seconds to
a 1.5km radius around the nest of the
slow down to no more than two rotations each lesser spotted eagle, for example, down
minute, ideally giving the eagle plenty of time from 3km. In the north-eastern state of
to navigate safe passage between its slowly Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, conservation
moving blades. officers said this is likely to affect ten
nesting pairs.
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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced
14 Wind-park developers may still be obliged to
take additional measures to protect the at-risk
birds, such as by switching off turbines while
fields in the vicinity are being harvested, thus
attracting birds of prey on the lookout for newly
exposed field mice.
15 Switching off turbines for an entire breeding
season, however, will no longer be allowed,
and rotor blades are not allowed to be kept
at standstill if the farm’s energy production is
diminished by 4 to 8% as a result, depending
on the location. “It’s a catastrophe,” said
one nature-protection officer. Court action
looks predestined.
16 “As a society, we have to start asking
ourselves some basic questions,” said
Wolfram Axthelm, the German Wind Energy
Association’s (BWE) Chief Executive. “Do we
want to build windfarms because we want
to mitigate climate change and protect the
environment as a whole? Or do we want to
save every individual bird?”
17 The number of birds killed by wind turbines, he
said, was dwarfed by those that perished after
flying into windows, being run over by cars or
being caught by domestic cats.
© Guardian News and Media 2022
First published in The Guardian, 20/09/2022

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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced

3
  Understanding the article

a. Are these statements True or False according to the article? Correct any that are false.

1. There are only 130 lesser spotted eagles in Germany.

2. The birds are attracted to the wind turbines and other tall structures and try to build their
nests there.

3. Eagles and other birds are often killed when they fly into the blades of a moving wind turbine.

4. Phasing out nuclear power was the idea of Germany’s current coalition government.

5. Currently, around 25% of Germany’s energy needs are covered by renewable energy.

6. Germany plans to increase power from renewable energy to cover 100% of the country’s
needs by 2030.

7. In order to do so, they need to build more windfarms and increase the number of turbines, which
puts them in conflict with local people and people who care about birds.

8. Germany’s Green-run environmental ministry plans to increase the area around the eagles’ known
nesting sites to offer more protection to the birds.

9. The new technology will detect an eagle in the air and then slow down the turbine so that the
eagle can fly through the blades unharmed.

10. In places where there are breeding pairs of lesser spotted eagles, windfarms will be asked to turn
off the turbines during the breeding season.

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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced

4
  Key language

a. With a partner, match the words to make word pairs from the article. Talk through the
meanings of each.

1. breeding a. tape

2. riding b. blades

3. vertical c. government

4. rotor d. force

5. coalition e. network

6. nesting f. thermals

7. red g. pair

8. neural h. site

9. driving i. application

10. planning j. obstacles

b. Use the word pairs to talk about the article.

c. Plan and write a short summary of the article. Your summary should contain at least eight of
the word pairs.

5
  Discussion

a. Work in two groups. You’re going to hold a debate on this topic:

Should windfarms and turbines be restricted to protect biodiversity?

Group A are nature and conservation protection officers.

Group B are representatives of a large national wind energy company.

Find and highlight all the arguments and facts in the article that help support your position.
Add further ideas of your own.

b. Hold a class debate.

c. Reflect on the topic of the debate. Is there a clear answer to this problem or is it more
complicated than that? Is there an emotional aspect to this topic?
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 Can AI stop rare eagles flying into wind turbines in Germany?
Level: Advanced

6
  In your own words

a. Read this info box about the lesser spotted eagle. Then write a similar text about another large
bird known to nest in your country. Add a personal perspective to your text. Write, for example,
whether you have ever seen this bird or how you would feel if you ever saw one.

Clanga pomarina is named after Pomerania, the historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea.
In Germany, the lesser spotted eagle’s population has declined by a quarter since the 1990s, not mainly
due to wind turbines but to a gradual disappearance of the woodland-meets-wetland habitats where the birds
like to nest.
Further to the east, in Estonia, Lithuania, and Slovakia, the species is still thriving. The International Union
for Conservation of Nature red list of threatened species lists the lesser spotted eagle’s global population as
stable, with an estimated 40,000–60,000 mature individuals remaining in the wild.

© Guardian News and Media 2022

First published in The Guardian, 20/09/2022

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