[BCNnet] Wind Energy

[Donnie]

BCNnet friends

 

This gives additional perspectives on the "'Shockingly high' number of
bird/bat fatalities around an Ontario, Canada windfarm", a posting made just
over a week ago.  

 

As most of you will recall, Caleb Gordon, a former Lake Forest College
professor, created and managed SWAMP, a bird banding program at Lake Forest
Open Lands for many years.  Since then he went to work at Pandion Systems,
an environmental consulting company in Florida.  This link is to one of his
recent scientific presentations on the impact of wind energy on oceanic
birds.

 

http://www.pandionsystems.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=sbvFUCq06zQ%3d
<http://www.pandionsystems.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=sbvFUCq06zQ%3d&tabi
d=114&mid=783> &tabid=114&mid=783  

 

A highly detailed scientific study on the issue was from the National
Academy of Sciences 2007 report on the environmental effects of wind power.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935
<http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&page=1> &page=1   Click the
link  <http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&page=67> 3 Ecological
Effects of Wind-Energy Development (67-139).

 

I excerpted one small section:

Having said the above, we provide here estimates summarized by Erickson et
al. (2005) and estimates reported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(USFWS 2002a). Those sources emphasize the uncertainty in the estimates, but
the numbers are so large that they are not obscured even by the uncertainty.
Collisions with buildings kill 97 to 976 million birds annually; collisions
with high-tension lines kill at least 130 million birds, perhaps more than 1
billion; collisions with communications towers kill between 4 and 5 million
based on "conservative estimates," but could be as high as 50 million; cars
may kill 80 million birds per year; and collisions with wind turbines killed
an estimated 20,000 to 37,000 birds per year in 2003, with all but 9,200 of
those deaths occurring in California. Toxic chemicals, including pesticides,
kill more than 72 million birds each year, while domestic cats are estimated
to kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and other species each year.
Erickson et al. (2005) estimate that total cumulative bird mortality in the
United States "may easily approach 1 billion birds per year."

Clearly, bird deaths caused by wind turbines are a minute fraction of the
total anthropogenic bird deaths-less than 0.003% in 2003 based on the
estimates of Erickson et al. (2005). However, the committee re-emphasizes
the importance of local and temporal factors in evaluating the effects of
wind turbines on bird populations, including a consideration of local
geography, seasonal bird abundances, and the species at risk. In addition,
it is necessary to consider the possible cumulative bird deaths that can be
expected if the use of wind energy increases according to recent projections


Donnie Dann

Highland Park/Lake County

donniebird at yahoo.com

 

 

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