Properly Planned Wind Farms Won't Harm Birds (as a population)

A congressionally mandated study released by the National Research Council (NRC) says: Wind Turbines Not a Threat to U.S. Bird Population

The last few meetings of the local Audubon Club included discussions as to what position the club should take vis-à-vis wind turbines. There are several locations here in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania being studied for potential wind turbine sites. The mountain ridges run east west and the winds coming from the north or northwest could generate tremendous amounts of energy. Our club’s concern is with the birds, of course, but also with the need for clean energy alternatives.

One thing that was discovered early on was that the local and state governments had no guidelines by which either the developer or the opponents to development could look for assistance.

But while some states have developed guidelines, wind energy is such a recent addition to the energy mix in most areas -- the nation's wind-energy capacity more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006 -- that most states are relatively inexperienced at planning and regulation.

Just this past week Tioga County did adopt some preliminary guidelines which put any construction of wind turbines under the gees of the planning committees and building inspectors. A small but important step.

As far as the impact on bird populations:

Focusing its study on a mountainous region that included parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, the report cited that bird deaths caused by collisions with wind turbines are a minute fraction of total anthropogenic bird deaths -- less than 0.003% [three of every 100,000] in 2003.

The study does admit that in some local and/or poorly planned areas the impact can be more substantial.

While the study found that wind facilities can have certain adverse environmental effects on a local or regional level, the report committee saw no evidence that fatalities from existing wind facilities are causing measurable changes in bird populations in the U.S. A possible exception to this is deaths among birds of prey, such as eagles and hawks, near Altamont Pass, California -- a facility with older, smaller turbines that appear more apt to kill such birds than newer models of wind turbines.

As the second commenter to the story mentions, the older, smaller, and more inefficient turbines used at Altamont pass will have to be replaced which should alleviate some of the problem in that locale.

And as the first commenter opines, cats do far more damage to the bird population so why don’t we fight harder to keep Tabby indoors and/or declawed and neutered?

I get the jitters whenever I see a cat walking across a field or along the side of a road. I probably shouldn’t now that I live in farm country and most of the farm cats earn their keep in and around the barn but they still “freelance” a bit on their own time.

Back in NJ there were folks who would intentionally feed feral cats at the train station. There had to be several dozen of these beasts. Whenever someone would propose capturing them and euthanizing these feral critters…well, the howling wasn’t just from the cats!

I don’t like free roaming dogs either.

(My three cats are neutered and are indoor cats. I won’t declaw them, however.)