Are windmills -- also known as wind turbines -- killing all of the bald eagles in the United States, as President Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post? No, that's not true: Studies estimate the number of eagles killed by wind turbines in the contiguous 48 U.S. states was in the hundreds in 2024, including both bald and golden eagles. The population of American bald eagles was estimated above 300,000 and growing in 2019. Trump's post shows a falcon killed by a wind turbine in Israel in 2017, not an American bald eagle.
The claim originated in a post published on the @realDonaldTrump account on Truth Social on December 30, 2025. The caption with the photo read:
Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Truth Social)
The photo used by President Trump to make his bald eagle claim shows a falcon. It was taken by Hedy Ben Eliahou, a park ranger with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority on September 11, 2017, according to the 2017 Haaretz article (archived here) where it was published. The caption reads:
A Falcon killed by a wind turbine in Israel.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Haaretz.com)
Official estimates of how many bald eagles have been killed by wind turbines are mixed, since most studies of eagle deaths are focused on golden eagles. A scientific study titled "Estimated golden eagle mortality from wind turbines in the western United States" (archived here) concluded that an estimated 270 golden eagles were killed by wind turbines in the western United States, where 80 percent of the North American golden eagle population is found, in 2024. The number could be as low as 72 and as high as 877, the researchers said.
Contrary to Trump's claim that wind turbines are killing all of the bald eagles, their numbers are "soaring," according to a report (archived here) by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The report estimated that there were 316,700 individual bald eagles in the lower 48 states in 2019, which is about 10 times the number of golden eagles. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated (archived here) that 20,722 golden eagles of all ages lived across four large bird conservation regions in the western United States, and about 30,000 total in the contiguous United States.
An energy company that operates wind turbines in seven western states was convicted (archived here) of killing and wounding eagles in 2022. Federal prosecutors charged ESI Energy for violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (archived here) because the company failed to cooperate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take steps to prevent bird deaths. The company admitted that 136 bald and golden eagles died after being struck by wind turbine blades at 50 of its energy facilities in the decade between 2012 and 2022. Documents in the case indicated that most of the eagles killed were golden, not bald, eagles.
The Trump administration, however, said in March 2025 that it would no longer prosecute companies for killing eagles if it was not intentional, the New York Times reported (archived here).
