Birds of a feather stick together — unless they’re covered in oil.That’s because oil sands giant Canadian Natural Resources has been found guilty of violations under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA).The Alberta Energy Regulator announced on Monday that it fined the company and implemented an administrative penalty of $278,000 “by failing to prevent a hazardous substance that contained bitumen from coming into contact with birds and other wildlife,” resulting in an undisclosed number of bird fatalities.”.A fine (or an administrative penalty) is one of many compliance tools the AER can use when companies do not comply with the rules, it said.The Calgary-based oil producer becomes the latest to be charged with similar offences. Suncor Energy and Imperial have each received similar reprimands, the latest in April of 2023 when Suncor reported 43 dead birds along with other wildlife at a tailings pond at its Mildred Lake plant site.In 2010, Suncor was fined $3 million after more than 1,600 ducks landed on a tailings pond in 2008.By contrast, the government estimates that each existing wind turbine in Alberta causes the deaths of 8.2 birds and 10.9 bats annually. Those numbers are considered conservative.According to the Alberta Institute for Wildlife conservation, that amounts to about 47,400 migratory bats per year alone.According to studies, tree bats make up 75% of wind turbine-related bat deaths, which leads some researchers to believe that the bats are mistaking the turbines for trees. Three subspecies — the hoary bat, the silver-haired bat, and the Eastern red bat — were all declared endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as of May, 2023.Bird deaths are harder to quantify, but with around 2,000 active wind turbines, that would translate into around 40,000 birds and bats in Alberta alone.
