Cutting down large swathes of forest and building over the habitats of endangered species happen for both. Solar and wind farms both need large land clearances

Cutting down large swathes of forest and building over the habitats of endangered species happen for both. Solar and wind farms both need large land clearances in areas that have a lot of their respective kind of energy, which animals also use. Solar farms do best in deserts, which tend to be habitats for species that like extreme conditions. Several of them have been blocked in recent years. There was a recent huge solar project that was planned to cover most of the land area that an endangered desert tortoise inhabits. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar/exclusive-sierra-club-sues-over-california-solar-plant-idUSTRE70432N20110105 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar/exclusive-sierra-cl... https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/massive-desert-solar-project-experiment-in-tortoise-survival https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/massive... Aside from the large swathes of forest that have to be cut down for wind farms, birds of prey tend to fly into the blades of wind turbines. These are also often endangered species. The fish and wildlife survey estimates 140,000-500,000 bird deaths at wind farms per year, with most of these being birds of prey which have low birth rates and high conservation value (many endangered species). In contrast, cats kill billions of birds per year, but they are common small birds, not endangered predator species. In addition, something like 800,000 bats are killed by wind turbines. https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.260 https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb... The solution, for solar, is obviously installations on top of human structures, like roofs and roads (but not on the road surface, which is silly). For wind, there isn't a good solution that doesn't hurt predator bird populations.