Trump Shares Photo Claiming Wind Turbines Killed A Bald Eagle — Image Was A Falcon From Israel

While vacationing at his Florida resort, former President Donald Trump posted an image on social media showing a dead bird beneath a wind turbine with the caption: “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!” The post was amplified by an official White House account on X with more than a million followers, prompting rapid public reaction.

Closer inspection, however, shows the image is misidentified. The bird in the photograph lacks the white head and markings of a bald eagle, and the turbine in the image appears to bear Hebrew writing. A reverse search and reporting trace the photograph to Israel, not the United States.

Origin Of The Photo

The image was taken by Hedy Ben Eliahou, an employee of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, and was published in a 2017 Haaretz report about bird fatalities at Israeli wind farms. The bird depicted is a falcon that was killed at an Israeli wind farm eight years ago — not a bald eagle in the U.S.

Context And Local Concern

Haaretz reported that Israeli parks and nature authorities expressed concern over wind turbines’ impact on birds and bats, estimating that turbines in Israel kill about two dozen birds annually. Those concerns prompted opposition from conservation groups and zoos involved in an eagle-breeding program to a proposed wind project in the Golan Heights, citing risks to already endangered vultures.

Why It Matters

This episode highlights two key problems in the modern information environment: a high-profile social-media post spreading quickly through official channels, and a failure to verify an image’s origin before amplifying it. A basic visual check (the bird’s markings and Hebrew text on the turbine) and a quick image trace would have revealed the photo’s true provenance.

Takeaway: The photograph shared by Trump was authentic but misattributed — it documented a falcon killed in Israel in 2017, not a bald eagle killed in the United States.

Note: The corrected information does not negate documented concerns about wind turbines’ local impacts on wildlife; it does, however, underscore the importance of careful sourcing before sharing content from public platforms.