Donald Trump confused an Israeli falcon with the bald eagle, the US national symbol, in a photo he posted on the Truth Social platform to demonstrate how harmful wind energy is to birds.
The photo in question shows a dead raptor, slumped at the base of a wind turbine. “Windmills are killing all our beautiful eagles,” the US president wrote in the caption.
In fact, the photo was taken many years ago in Israel and shows not a bald eagle – as the bald eagle is officially called – but a falcon. According to an AFP investigation, the photo was published in 2017 in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which at the time said it came from Israel’s natural parks management agency. Moreover, the Hebrew letters are clearly visible on the pillar of the wind turbine.
Trump’s post was echoed by a White House X-Platform account as well as the Department of Energy accusing wind turbines of being an “ugly” environment, expensive and a threat to biodiversity, particularly birds.
Many elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, criticized the reproduction of the photo. Among them was California Governor Gavin Newsom. “Sleeping Don Can’t Make Out America’s Emblem?” he wondered.
The bald eagle is depicted on stamps, banknotes and even military emblems. It stands out because of its white head and large size, while the bird in Trump’s photo is smaller and darker.
Every year in the US, hundreds of thousands of birds are killed by wind turbines, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but it clarified in 2023 that this number is only “a very small percentage” of birds killed by other reasons, such as collisions with buildings or cat attacks.
