[BCNnet] Madison TV tower wires kill up to 400 songbirds

[Randi Doeker - Chicago]

Please note: this topic has been studied for over a decade; another study is
not going to add to the hundreds of reports that exist.
Randi Doeker
Chicago




Madison TV tower wires kill up to 400 songbirds 
October 6, 2005 

MADISON, Wis. -- As many as 400 songbirds were killed in one night after
they flew into wires holding up a television tower. 
The deaths may spur the creation of a group to study the dangers
communication towers pose to migrating birds, said specialists with the
Department of Natural Resources. 
''It's an issue that has been with us for decades,'' DNR avian ecologist
Sumner Matteson said. ''But we really haven't done anything about it.'' 
The birds were killed the night of Sept. 13-14 at the WMTV tower. 
''There were birds all over the place,'' said Steven Ugoretz, a DNR
environmental specialist. 
Searchers found 172 birds around the base of the 1,100-foot tower. Crows,
cats and other scavengers took another 200 or more, and Ugoretz estimates
more birds likely died because no one searched nearby woods.