Posted on 11/21/2013 8:55:15 AM PST by NormsRevenge
California's newest wind turbines may be killing more than 100,000 birds a year, according to a peer-reviewed study to be published in December. Those mortalities seem to climb the taller wind turbines get. And California wind turbines kill more wildlife per megawatt than identical turbines in other parts of the country.
...
The study, conducted by Scott R. Loss and Peter P. Marra from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Migratory Bird Center and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tom Will, appears in the December 2013 issue of the journal Biological Conservation.
The study was based on a survey of publicly available literature of bird mortalities at monopole-mounted wind turbines, and so its results are almost certain to be quite conservative: studies the trio included vary in the types of mortality surveys they include, and the group excluded individual studies that lumped turbine strike mortalities in with other causes of death. The three note that gaps in the information they used, which might affect the accuracy of their conclusions, could be filled if wind turbine owners were required to report their wildlife kills more stringently:
Despite numerous calls for an increase in the transparent reporting of study results and availability of reports to the public and scientists, collision data largely remains confidential and/or offline.
Furthermore, reports that have been released to the public (e.g. on the internet) are often difficult to locate. We join previous authors in calling for increased transparency in data reporting. Requiring industry reports to be made publicly available would greatly improve understanding of wind energy impacts to wildlife.
(Excerpt) Read more at kcet.org ...
PPLLOOOOOFFFFFfffffffftt!!
Alfred Hitchcock was a smart fellow.
He made 'The Birds' before they became instinct.
Maybe we need a sequel..
The Angry Birds: Payback
And the civil / criminal penalties will be enforced... when... ?
Yawn.
Idiocracy, the article.
Nobody learns the rudiments of the food chain in elementary school science classes anymore. Strike that. Journalism no longer allows people who understand the rudiments of science to be anywhere near the process of writing articles which might pertain to science.
**********
'Impacts' in this case could be a double entendre. lol
The law of unintended consequences in action. Same for Obamacare and all Federal laws.
Wait till the wind farms kill off the last of the Condors, then Cali can make lead ammo legal again, bet they won’t.
My instinct is, the word "extinct" was the word intended.
Dang.. You got it! oops.
My glucose is high , blurred my vision. yeah, that’s it. ;-]
We have been feeding and caring for wild birds for over 20 years. We have tracked over 40 species of birds throughout the seasons since then. The last two years have seen a huge decline in all our black bird species both here and on the marsh plains peppered throughout Washington state. We haven’t seen a bat in years. Washington State has also lined the Columbia Gorge Plateau (both sides) with miles and miles of ugly wind turbines. Our oh so green, Avista Utilities Company, completed a huge wind turbine project on the plains outside of our city. The end result of fewer and fewer migratory birds that use the routes blanketed in wind turbines, speaks for itself.
We need to start a campaign:
Harvest the Poultry!
Have the govt hire folks to move it for processing and distribution to victims of the Baraqqi Depression.
Because publications never, EVER, publish studies that have surprising results. ANYTHING in print MUST be low-balling, right?
Yeah, this article will contain NO bias whatsoever. /sarc>
Your anecdotal evidence ("We haven't seen a bat in years") means very little when determining whether turbines actually impact those populations.
Meadow Lake Wind Farm. Again, they are planning Phases V and VI right now.
“Your anecdotal evidence (”We haven’t seen a bat in years”) means very little when determining whether turbines actually impact those populations.”
Absolutely mine is anecdotal evidence, which is very clear in my post. I did not claim it as fact. What is certain is that the black bird population is greatly diminished in Washington State, at least on the east side. While agricultural pesticides contribute greatly to bird mortality, this does not adequately explain the decline of our black bird population in the last two years, whereas a recently completed wind farm on the nearby plains may.
Don’t worry, they just banned lead bullets for hunting. That was a far worse problem for wildlife than these useless windmills.
Idiots.
Too bad snail darters don’t fly.
That would stop them from erecting these ugly propellers.
That you personally haven't seen a bird or bat carcass near the base of any rig is equally anecdotal.
From a comment on the article:
Wind turbine towers have grown from about 20 meters to 100 meters and blades have increased from 7 meters on 40 kW turbines to well in excess of 50 meters in length. Instead of increasing carcass search areas in their mortality studies to accommodate these progressively larger turbines, the wind industry has deliberately stayed with their search areas of about 50 meters from towers even though their new turbines have 25-44 times larger.
Pride in the USA, here's a youtube for you. Keep in mind as you watch it that there are no dead birds or bats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD_Vr9ZDSuk
There's a truth somewhere between "I have seen no dead birds" and "there are a bazillion dead birds" as a result of wind turbines.
Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
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