> We show that the use of the ORNIS 1%, the 5% mortality criterion, and potential biological removal criteria are inadequate for providing safe thresholds with respect to the impact of wind turbine collisions on populations.
From a paper entitled "Mortality limits used in wind energy impact assessment underestimate impacts of wind farms on bird populations".
1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.6360
I am personally satisfied that this is being done by people that do deeply understand the limitations and capabilities of their work, but I cannot transfer that to you.
But the fact that they understand the limitations and capabilities in their work has no bearing on the effectiveness of their work when it comes to the specific goal of protecting bird populations. (One does not logically imply the other.)
When the goal is the preservation of a species through the understanding of survival pressures caused by human activity, I think that understanding of the limitations of the state of the art does in fact translate into progress towards actionable understanding of the “ground truth”. This becomes manifest once you factor in the motivations of the researchers, who will use that knowledge to press further study, make new hypothesis, and couch the conclusions of their studies with this knowledge in mind.
Every advancement in understanding is built upon the knowledge of the shortcomings of previous investigations.
I am curious enough that I will ask these details and follow up if I can…
I am certain they are confident they are able to effect change within the limitations that the economic system provides, which is also another difference.
I’ll myself add that presumably the data collected on larger farms can be used as a prior to make accurate inferences on smaller farms.
I'd like to see not just more precise numbers of birds lost to wind energy, but the environmental and societal costs of not having the wind energy. Fuel extraction and processing has its environmental impact too. Lack of affordable energy (fuel poverty) costs human lives too. How many human lives are harmed to save a bird from a windmill?
But it's probably a good idea to build wind farms outside major migratory routes.
Think how many birds crash during a year, and how many houses and buildings with windows there are.
You can also buy bird stickers to put up.
So there are a variety of products advertised for home usage that stick to the outside of the window to make it appear more like a barrier, often semi-transparent to us but more-opaque in ultraviolet to birds.
Simply not cleaning them.
No more birdie bam then, because they see immediately what's ahead.
No more dread about smashed beaks, brains and broken wings.
Birdie sings, joy it brings!
That evening, the Roly-Poly Bird flew round and round The Big Red House singing out,
"There's sticky dirt stuff all over the pane!
If you fly at the surface, you'll damage your brain!
So fly away! Fly away! Do not crash!
Or you'll finish up tomorrow in a cold Bird Mash!"Furrows the brow of my wife up quite a bit.
Or a transparent film with a pattern of absorbed and reflected UV?
Every day, we'd have bloody smears on the glass.
[We don't know how much birds kill the windmills so] "This makes it a weak argument against windmills"
"We don't know how much, so it may not happen, or is not so relevant as we think, but is repeated by ideology", is a nasty trick. Nice smoke curtain. Specially when is joined later with:
"it is true that all humanmade structures are technically bird killers, but..."
Either it happens, or it does not happen.
We aren't talking here about a sparrow crashing against a window. What we do know is that carcasses of big raptors, vultures, storks, other birds, and even bats can be found near the windmills basis often, in a distribution that is not aleatory.
Even if we never achieve to calculate an exact value (before the corpses are quietly removed by foxes or companies) we can identify that there is a problem here. As predators are scarce (by definition) and some are endangered, the impact on populations is not negligible.
Killing endangered species is illegal. It does not matter If is "just one" or "just a few" eagles.
So top 3 killers are cats, windows and cars and it doesn’t help if cats only kill small birds and mammals because they basically kill the food of the larger birds.
Don’t forget tire wear and all the other sources of pollution that endangers any living being.
And add climate change.
So why are wind turbines singled out?
Because some people hate the looks of wind turbines, they believe it lowers their property value. To pretend that this is about the birds is absurd, because if it was these same people would target cats as well and they are not doing that and never did.
People can be amazingly stupid. Some people in my area wanted to prevent the construction of wind turbines as it would destroy the view of the nearby fjord. They strategically forgot to mention that the turbines would be replacing a coal fired power plant (and the open air coal storage). The view is already destroyed, if anything the turbines will actually let you see the fjord and make room for a huge nature area around them.
There might also be a group of people working in the fossil fuel industry who fear that wind turbines are taking their jobs.
Because the oil lobby only objects to windmills, and not to buildings, powerlines, domestic cats, and certainly not to cars. And the oil industry has the funds to control the narrative, and this is a narrative that may get some environmentalists to work for them.
The counter is of course to widen the discussion to all manmade structures that kill birds, especially glassy high-rises.
There’s no point to ban them altogether neither the cats or cars. Consider a range if options between total ban and total unregulation. Thing about traffic code.
The biologists that took of look at it probably already have propositions like putting them outside of the narrowest migratory corridors or ways to be visible to birds as stickers does on German windows.
Nuclear power plants take a long to build and are expensive in power production and maintenance. Just look at France in the hot summers.
And that doesn’t include the danger of sabotage and terrorism.
Didn’t read anything about the fear of russian rockets hitting Ukrainian wind turbines.
Nuclear power plants are also a SPF. In insecure times decentralization is better.
In many cases nuclear is a better option, but if you want to stand up a few gigawatts of power in two - five years, turbines will let you do that. There's no chance of getting a nuclear power plant operating in a country with no history of nuclear power in less than ten year, and that's perhaps being fairly optimistic. Wind is better than running coal 24/7, which is what you competing against in most cases.
Well, yes it actually does, legally at least.
If they just like suiciding against a specific window of yours for no apparent reason, then you’re fine.
https://www.fws.gov/program/eagle-management/eagle-incidenta... I hope you didn't disturb any eagles lately;)
(Unless you have a permit. If you are powerline company you are allowed unlimited incidental kills for example. Or if you are wind power company you can apply for a permit for thousand incidental kills or something)
Or do you have an example where someone built a house in a reasonable fashion, an eagle ran into it, and the owner or construction company was charged?
You’d have to build right next to an active nest, or intentionally design the building to be a hazard in an area they were nesting/living. Which goes to my comment.
Even if the bird doesn't kill itself but simply judged to "can't reproduce" due to your intentional or unintentional action you are guilty.
If you think this is illogical and unenforceable welcome to the club;)
(Also you can find interesting stuff like https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-finds-rat-po.... Is this illegal? By law totally yes in at least 4% cases of those dead eagles are illegal incidental kills without permit and others are at least disturbance. How many people prosecuted? I count grand total of zero.)
Several scientific studies calculate than between 234,000 and 573,093 birds on average are killed by year in USA by windmills. Big and small species. Data points that bats suffer even more than birds. (See Smallwood. 2010. The Journal of the wildlife management 71, issue 8 for example).
Without context these numbers mean nothing. Species are displaced by human existence, acting like windmills are the biggest danger and supporting the fossil fuel industry, like you are doing, is not going to help birds or other animals.
Wind company permit allows killing 1000+ eagles. This company just did not get it. 150 is basically nothing.
Great logic! Let's ban skyscrapers and any windows that do not pass through UV. Use one in your house? Illegal.
Windmill company ESI Energy LLC, guilty of killing 150 bald and golden eagles in 8 USA states [1][2]
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wind-energy-company-ple...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/esi-energy-llc-wholly-o...
> Use one in your house? Illegal
I'm curious, how much bald eagles crashed against your house windows lately?
> ESI Energy LLC, guilty of killing 150 eagles
> how much bald eagles crashed against your house?
We dont know the statistical extend but we can measure very accurately in smaller areas especially large and endangered birds.
This is why (in my country) you have to study the local bird population before you get your permission to build your windmills. Something ESI should have done, even if we perfectly knew the statistics of all birds killed by windmills globally.
Read the case. They were guilty of basically not getting a permit. If they got a permit their incidental kills can be thousand+ per project. They are a "least concern" category.
> But the biggest fallacy in this PR stunt is that outrageous "we don't know, nothing to see here"
The fallacy is saying this is a concern while not having measurements showing it is a bigger concern than other things like illegal shooting or lead poison or rat poison or power lines or skyscraper windows. If the windmill fighters actually care about birds maybe they could fund these studies. Do they fund these bird studies or just don't want wind energy for whatever reason (like investing into fossil fuels)? If they fund those bird studies why don't we have the measurements.
Meanwhile there are no permits for killing eagles with rat poison (every death is illegal but who's counting?). Meanwhile every power line operator is given unlimited permit for incidental bald eagle kills. But yes wind turbines, the big enemy of bird lovers.
ESI pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, (because their facilities killed, at least, 150 endangered eagles). The court sentenced ESI to a fine of $1,861,600, restitution in the amount of $6,210,991, and a five-year period of probation
So yep, basically, a little tiny, 8 millions worth, paperwork problem.
> Meanwhile there are no permits for killing eagles with rat poison
Wow, that is super-unfair!. If you think that the US government should grant permits to people craving to kill endangered eagles with rat poison, write your local governor about your concern. This must be a traditional local sport somewhere.
> The fallacy is saying this is a concern
Is a concern
> while not having measurements showing it is a bigger concern than <whatabout that>, <whatabout this?> (read this with the music of Dragostea Din Tei in your mind)
Is still a concern
Lol. Paperwork problems can be very costly my friend, welcome to life
> Is a concern
So you agree with me, since as I wrote it is a concern. A low one. If you want to measure it against other concerns, the avid bird lover that you are, we are all waiting for your numbers;)
And bald eagles specifically least concern by US law
They should say that to the investors: "Our repeated incompetence only cost the company, huh, 35 millions [1], but all is fine and... look, a squirrel!".
"Of course that will be fixed with the 007 permit to kill unlimited eagles at the magical price of $29,623 of your money for each bald or golden eagle killed... wow, that squirrel over there has a super cute unibrow!. Looks exactly like Walter, from contability, when is biting his nails"
[1] 8 millions fine, plus investment of 27 millions required to pass the probatory period.
The thing that often gets raptors, is rat poison. It also kills cats. Rats seem to thrive, no matter what we throw at them.
It’s generally a good idea to keep cats indoors. I read a statistic that outdoor cats live dramatically shorter lives than indoor ones.
And we are talking about skyscrapers not simply houses.