[eastbay]

Windmills are slaughtering thousands of birds annually just in one site alone. I understand wind power produces around 20% of the electricity in Denmark and under 10% in other European countries... but this dead raptor count is getting out of control... it's just terrible.

I used to live near these windmills and saw them as a hope for our energy future. Well, maybe they are a sign of the future, but not as our energy future... maybe a sign of something else. We now burn our food in cars and turn our lights on with dead birds. This isn't looking very good at all.


"The long hot summers of the San Joaquin Valley suck great tsunamis of cool coastal air through the Altamont Pass, producing winds so powerful that a person can lean nearly 45 degrees without falling down.
Such awesome force gave birth in the early 1980s to the world's largest collection of wind turbines, pioneers in what is now America's fastest-growing form of renewable energy and an increasingly important weapon in the battle against global warming.
But the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area is also a symbol of the wind industry's biggest stain - the killings of thousands of birds, including majestic golden eagles, by turbines."

[RonMN]

I wont have to waste my ammo on bird hunting!

I'll just hang out under a windmill & wait for my dinner to drop out of the sky

[mos6507]

I realize that prop-style windmills are the most efficient, but vertical axis (helical) turbines are much safer for birds.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', 'I') wont have to waste my ammo on bird hunting!

I'll just hang out under a windmill & wait for my dinner to drop out of the sky

[eastbay]

The part of this story that I find sad is that roughly 100 eagles are killed annually just in this field of windmills alone! Plus thousands of other birds too!

Plus, if these windmills were all shut down today, the amount of electricity lost would be negligible. No one would notice... except for the handful of owners who are responsible.

I suppose in time, the number of birds killed will diminish... since less birds will be left flying around and hunting in that area.

[AWPrime]

Lets just stop shooting them and destroying their habitats that should have a far bigger impact.

Then let evolution have its way.

[WisJim]

Most of the "windmills kill birds" arguments are lies and bullshit.
Due to changing land use in nearby areas (prompted by suburban expansion), agricultural land use in the area is increasing, and pesticides are being used in areas that the birds used to nest in. There is evidence that some bird deaths are due to rodenticides used in farms, passing to the birds through mice and other small mammals.

Overall, more birds are killed by each window in buildings in the USA than by each wind generator.

[eastbay]

.... so, WisJim, you're maybe suggesting that the people counting battered dead birds found lying under spinning windmills were placing the carcasses there to make windmills look bad?

Who knows, it may be true... stranger things have happened. I mean, those dead bird counters would quickly be out of work if it was determined something else was killing thousands and thousands of birds, right?

I've never heard of an eagle flying into a window either...

[Tyler_JC]

...?

Windmills are more dangerous to birds than climate change?

Or toxic gas emissions from coal-fired powered plants?

Give me a break.

Pretend you are a bird for a minute:

Would you rather see this?



Or this?

[eastbay]

... apples and oranges Tyler... there's no way windmills like the ones at Altamont will ever generate enough electricity to come anywhere close to replacing coal power.

Of course you already know this... so maybe you're just trying to be funny... like, 'sitting under windmills catching dead birds as they fall', sort of funny. Ha ha ha.

[RonMN]

Does anybody have a count of dead birds from them flying into windows/glass buildings?

Maybe we should ban all glass

[eastbay]

This says there's a cheap way to prevent birds from flying into windows.

A few sites used the figure 90 million birds killed flying into windows but it wasn't footnoted by any study... the number is obviously very high. They didn't say if it was worldwide or just in one particular country.

[eastbay]

Good idea Ron... include dead eagles in that count too if anyone finds this.

Somehow I suspect the count of window killings will be high in seagulls and pigeons... but that's just a guess too.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '.').. apples and oranges Tyler... there's no way windmills like the ones at Altamont will ever generate enough electricity to come anywhere close to replacing coal power.

Of course you already know this... so maybe you're just trying to be funny... like, 'sitting under windmills catching dead birds as they fall', sort of funny. Ha ha ha.

[hubbertspeak7777777]

If the birds are too dumb to avoid the blades, then they deserve their fate. somewhat-natural selection. Adapt or die.

Personally, I can't wait until the majority of life on this planet is extinct... except for bacteria, they are the only organisms on this planet that are remotely likable. I'm sure the earth was a much nicer place when it was inhabited by only single-celled organisms, but nature had to go and fuck up the k.i.s.s. (keep it simple, stupid) principle. Our show jumped the shark long before the dinos came.

[eastbay]

It's utterly amazing how deep we've plunged into the abyss already.

Otherwise perfectly intelligent people are justifying trading battered birds for electricity... and calling it eco-friendly... and natural selection.

Using food to power large personal vehicles... calling that eco- friendly too...

Electric cars... calling them 'green' when they use coal thereby helping kill the atmosphere.

Listen to how we justify it all in this way and that...

Yup. 10.0

[lawnchair]

Sounds like an argument for nuclear to me. Even with Chernobyl, even counting Mayak and Hanford (both being more weapons-related than power-related messes), nukes come out distinctly best in birds and bees per GWh.

And, while I'm generally in favor of nukes, I suspect that some of the most alarming studies of birds in windmills are probably funded, sub rosa, by nuclear interests.

[RonMN]

You can call me a sick bastard if you like...but I find it difficult to get "up in arms" about dead birds when the fabric of our entire economic structure is unravelling before our eyes.

Not to mention, the more I research this topic the funnier I find it.

Quote:
I suddenly recall the Dutch article that documented a mallard drake that smashed into the window of a museum, died, and then its body got raped by another mallard drake.

Gay necrophilia in ducks... *shudders*



Full Story - Birds & Glass Windows

[eastbay]

I'll never call you any names at all... but there must be a better, kinder way to add a measly 1% to the US electric supply. Remember... if those Altamont windmills were all gone it wouldn't be noticed anywhere except in the wallets of the windmill operators.

This is one disgusting way to make electricity, that's all I'm sayin' and what the article suggests too.

[gnm]

Damn and I thought wind generators were good already! Now you're telling me I can put up one of these on my hill and not only do I get power but it drops food from the sky with no additional effort! All you gotta do is stroll around the bottom every morning -gotta go look up those sparrow recipes

-G