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New Evidence Shows Wind Turbines Cut Growth in Vulnerable Bird Populations by up to 20%

by Toby Young
23 April 2022 8:14 PM

The journalist James Delingpole has long described wind turbines as “bat chomping, bird-slicing eco crucifixes”. He does not seem to have been exaggerating. Last month saw the publication of findings from a group of American academic ecologists, that “for the first time” showed “distinct patterns of population – and subpopulation level – vulnerability for a wide variety of bird species found dead at renewable energy facilities”.

The paper continued: “Of the 23 priority bird species killed at renewable energy facilities, 11 (48%) were either highly or moderately vulnerable, experiencing a greater than or equal to 20% decline in the population growth rates.” At the greatest risk are raptors such as golden eagles, kites and owls. These birds are often all-year residents around wind farms, where they require open skies to catch wind currents, perform mating rituals, defend territory and dive for prey. For their part, modern wind turbines generate enormous air fluctuations, while massive blade tips travel at over 150mph.

Published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the paper examined numerous wind and solar facilities in California. The state was selected since it was said to be a “global diversity hotspot” and a big developer of alternative power. Few details of bird kills have been available in the past but the report notes extensive previous slaughter caused by collisions with wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. In addition birds are killed by beams of light from concentrated solar power towers.

Among the birds in the 11 most vulnerable groups were the white-tailed kite, western yellow-billed cuckoo, western grebe, tricoloured blackbird, barn owl and golden eagle. Also said to be at “disproportionately high” relative risk were local subpopulations of horned lark, Wilson’s warbler and burrowing owl. Local subpopulations of western meadowlark, Wilson’s warbler and greater roadrunner were also noted to be affected by solar facilities, while non-local subpopulations of western meadowlark and American kestrel were affected by wind farms.

Raptors were said to show “greater among-species variability to proportional increases in numbers of fatalities than any other taxonomic group, although most raptors also were vulnerable to increases in absolute numbers of fatalities”.

In conclusion, the authors state that their work shows renewable facilities affect both local and migratory birds. The cumulative effects of renewable energy are “probably more extensive than previously understood, especially for migratory species”. Such “non-local demographic effects” are noted to have only rarely been documented.

This ground-breaking work from California is undoubtedly a major step forward in understanding the cumulative effects of wind and solar farm bird depredation. It will be interesting to see if it receives wider press coverage. The problem has been known about for some time. In 2013 Delingpole noted that wind farms built to catch good thermals will “kill a disproportionate number of raptors”. In fine polemic style he noted; “If you really hate nature, you’ll love wind farms. Not only do they destroy the landscape, blight views, increase flooding but… they kill rare birds and bats on an industrial scale”.

The bird slaughter is another elephant in the room for green activists. Few are as conflicted as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Andrew Dodd, the RSPB Head of Casework, told the BBC last year that we clearly need more offshore wind turbines “and the RSPB supports that”. But it was noted that the North Sea was filling up with turbines “and we have to avoid development in the most sensitive areas”. The BBC’s Roger Harrabin reported that the RSPB and wind farm association Renewable UK both blame the government “for failing to mitigate the conflict between wildlife and clean energy”.

Rock and a hard place, might seem to sum up that dilemma. The Harrabin story surrounded the giant Hornsea Three development in the North Sea, an area visited by kittiwakes. These birds are at particular risk since they have been spotted trying to slalom their way through the fields springing up in the North Sea.

Britain is committed to a huge expansion of wind power under Net Zero, and it is already a world leader with over 11,000 turbines. Local planning difficulties have constrained the recent development of onshore sites, but this sector still accounts for almost 60% of total installed capacity. But recent pressure to develop further onshore sites is growing in the wake of the current energy crisis. Last week, the Guardian reported that “leading scientists” had said onshore wind farms need not blight the most beautiful parts of England “because there is plenty of room for them next to rail lines and on brownfield sites”.

It is interesting to speculate how the campaign to ban fracked gas would have fared if it could have been shown that the process produced a pile of dead endangered eagles. In the event, the process was stopped by activists such as Roger Harrabin, with their talk of underground ‘explosions’ and earthquakes similar in intensity to someone sitting on a chair. In California, and elsewhere, it seems the price for recharging a battery car is considerable avian ecocide.

And don’t even start on how all that cobalt is being mined.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor

Tags: Eco-CrucifixesVulnerable Bird PopulationsWind Turbines

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39 Comments
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Are we at all surprised?

How green is your valley?

30
-2
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago

“At the greatest risk are raptors such as golden eagles, kites and owls. These birds are often all-year residents around wind farms, where they require open skies to catch wind currents, perform mating rituals, defend territory and dive for prey. For their part, modern wind turbines generate enormous air fluctuations, while massive blade tips travel at over 150mph”.

Before I read the article through, I was going to mention that beautiful, rare (at least in Britain) bird the golden eagle. So sad that they are once more under threat from the bird slicers. Strange to think that the same people who want to ban hunting may also support these turbines.

(Oh, and guess what? Their population also previously suffered from pesticides. Ruddy Bill Gates!)

These turbines will be about as good for nature as lockdowns and the rest were for granny.

Last edited 3 years ago by Hugh
41
-1
David Beaton
David Beaton
3 years ago

The deranged Zero Carbon fanatics and their Billionaire sponsors don’t give a damn about bird or human populations – or the earth itself !

Neither do our rotten, sold-out Globalist Stooge politicians busy planning “food shortages” for us all.

Last edited 3 years ago by David Beaton
50
-1
Alter Ego
Alter Ego
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Perhaps two groups of protestors might confront each other: PETA meets Extinction Rebellion?.

11
-1
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Well, I suppose the last might reduce the obesity problem! {Always look on the bright side of ….. }

2
0
Lucan Grey
Lucan Grey
3 years ago

When roads became busy hedgehogs were killed in vast numbers because they rolled up under threat.

Evolution worked and selected for those that ran.

It’ll be the same for birds and wind turbines.

Like free markets, evolution works.

2
-36
Chris Morrison
Chris Morrison
3 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

Have you ever seen a large bird like an eagle try to fly in a strong wind? It is very wary of tall trees 100 m away. Evolution is not going to cure that.

16
-1
Star
Star
3 years ago
Reply to  Lucan Grey

Evolution actually exists. Free markets don’t. The ideology of “free markets” is based on a category error. Markets inevitably lead to centralisation and concentration. There hasn’t been a f***ing market in history that hasn’t.

11
-4
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago

Interesting how it doesn’t occur to some, that building “things” like high-speed bird shredders, in the very places where once those birds flew in free air, might decimate their resident and migratory populations.

Perhaps we’ll see RSPB members, and those of other organisations like XR, gluing themselves to turbines.

29
-1
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

I’d love to see them all spinning around at 150mph.

11
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

Hopefully.

1
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

Hmm, don’t hold your breath on that!

1
0
lorrinet
lorrinet
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

I don’t think so. I wrote to them once, begging them to at least protest about these killing machines and didn’t even get a reply.

There are so many things that environmentalists should be protesting about – such as these lethal wind turbines, but also about GM, and the poisoning of our earth with toxic weed-killers and so on – what a chemical cocktail we have in our bodies. Something is causing the huge rise in cases of autism, and food allergies that were scarcely heard of 50 years ago. Is anybody still studying bee colony collapse? Now we have billions – trillions? of face coverings to add to the ocean of plastic and disposable nappies.

“Science has made such huge advances that there is barely a healthy human left”.

Aldous Huxley

1
0
yohodi
yohodi
3 years ago

..and they are nowhere near cost effective..

8
-1
amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago

Politicians are completely unable to consider second-order effects when making their decisions. It doesn’t matter what the decision is, it is pretty much always dictated by a simplistic cause and effect. You’d think that they’d be able to consider the complexities of a given situation, but it seems not — it is always distilled down to a simple binary choice. It doesn’t matter if the decision is a bypass for a town, fiscal policy for the nation or the giving of novel under-tested medicines to the entire population — it is always simplified. I imagine that this is because the simple effect usually occurs rapidly (incidentally allowing senior decision-makers to pick up a gong or two), whereas second order effects occur after the person has moved on from their post (and who cares about that).

38
-1
Alter Ego
Alter Ego
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

I’m not sure that they’re unable, but they soon find that considering second-order effects just annoys people: makes them sound like “thinkers” rather than “do-ers”.

Thinking, asking questions, is a deviation from the only cause and effect they really care about in the end. There’s one question that matters and one only: Will this help me win the next election?

8
0
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

Like I say, we desperately need a minister for unintended consequences. The cast iron political law.
To be fair, I think they tried somethin of the sort with the office for budget responsibility. A step in the right direction (at least theoretically), but more is needed.

Last edited 3 years ago by Hugh
4
0
HarryBlack
HarryBlack
3 years ago

I call them sky swords. We should tear em all down. We had perfectly adequate coal fire stations until the climate Marxists got their way.

25
-2
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  HarryBlack

Been good news for Communist China though…

6
0
MTF
MTF
3 years ago

Ironic to see a paper making estimates based on models being accepted by this community. Actually I think it is a good bit of research – but the conclusion isn’t simply “windpower is bad for birds” – domestic cats kill many times more birds every year. It implies we need to think carefully about the effect on specific bird populations when we build them. There is actually quite a lot of research going on into where to place wind farms so they minimise the impact and also things as simple as painting the blades a different colour.

7
-5
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Or we could just forget the birds and look at what we need – and it isn’t bloomin windmills.

10
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Don’t build the frigging things.

The energy costs in making, building and installing these wind thingies actually exceeds the electricity they will generate before they have to be scrapped.

21
0
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

The decommissioning and scrapping will use quite a lot of energy too.

3
0
Perce Lipps
Perce Lipps
3 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

How much is “quite a lot”?

0
-1
Puddleglum
Puddleglum
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

This is exactly the point I logged in to make.

1
0
MTF
MTF
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I think that is a myth. See here. Or you have a different source?

1
-3
Perce Lipps
Perce Lipps
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Data?

0
-1
rtaylor
rtaylor
3 years ago

Hornsea Project 3 was given the OK on 31st Dec 2021, Ashok Sharma’s last day before taking up the post as President of COP26 on 1st Jan 2022. He is a Kittiwake killer.

7
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  rtaylor

Every member of the current government is a killer. Some have mass murder on their hands like Bozo, Jabbit and the rest of the cabinet but the rest are guilty by association.

12
0
Star
Star
3 years ago

And here we have…a real human effect on the biosphere.

“Anthropogenic climate change” ideology is on a par with Lysenkoism and this particular example is reminiscent of the Chinese “Smash Sparrows” campaign, which was a major cause of a famine that killed tens of millions of people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjRZIW_hRlM

8
-1
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
3 years ago

There are also dangers to humans. Although rare, ice can form on the blades. I have seen a case of a piece of ice as big as a wheel barrow that fell through the roof of a carpet showroom in Eastern England. Luckily no one was standing where it fell becuase impact would have been seriouly injurious or fatal.

It is shameful that the RSPB continued to endorse windmills so long.

12
0
realarthurdent
realarthurdent
3 years ago

One of the reasons I resigned from the RSPB after more than 30 years of membership was its determination to put the wind power generation lobby ahead of the needs of wild birds. You know, the birds the society supposedly existed to protect.

20
0
Manjushri
Manjushri
3 years ago

Double whammy for CO2 reduction, kill birds to earn extra carbon credits.

8
0
shrenkssedge
shrenkssedge
3 years ago

Wind turbines have always killed lots of birds. Trouble is consultants involved in their potential impact are employed by the development company and if the consultancy want any future work they must say what the developers want to hear. Of those consulted on new wind farms: Local planning departments are not fit for purpose in any way. The countryside agencies in England, Scotland and Wales have all had their teeth extracted by the respective governments over the years and now are just weak mouthpieces of government and staffed by pension watching noddies with all the able ecologists gone years ago. Conservation charities say too little too late and just go through the motions of objecting. Subsidies have attracted many dubious foreign companies looking for guaranteed higher returns than other investments. The whole windfarm business blights our countryside and seascapes and the subsidies add £250 to the average annual electricity bill and when our winter weather is at its coldest during high pressure systems the wind doesnt blow. A monumental scam from the outset driven by greed.

13
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago

Elon Musk exclusives from TED2022. Do read Elon’s words of wisdom in this TED talk.

1
0
TheEngineer
TheEngineer
3 years ago

I wonder if the RSPB are actively opposing windmill construction or if they are too green to understand.

5
0
Turtlesnapper
Turtlesnapper
3 years ago

With offshore winbdfarms seabirds may be just the thin end of the wedge – but nobody wants to look …..

Studies have shown that the electromagnetic fields around connector cables cause crabs and lobsters to be attracted to it and then go into a state of suspended animation with significant changes to their blood chemistry. The phenomena of hundreds of thousands of crabs and lobsters washed up dead on the North East coast of England in an area where 3 major undersea cables reach land may be a pointer to this ‘problem’.

What about Infrasound effects on fish and mammals such s dolphins and whales? Nobody seems interested in studying this – I wonder why (sarc). Studies in Europe have found that the infrasound emitted from wind turbines causes damage to human and animal health, including, and notably, a weakening of the heart muscles. A French dairy farmer with a 400 strong herd saw an average of 1 cow dying each week following the opening of a windfamr adjacent to his property – perviousy he might see 1 cow a year die.

There’s none so blind as those who refuse to see – particularly when it might prove the terrible result of their obsession with so-called renewables.

6
0
RTSC
RTSC
3 years ago

The Eco Loons don’t care about the effect on birds.

5
0
thelightcavalry
thelightcavalry
3 years ago

Headline:
“Wind Turbines Cut Growth in Vulnerable Bird Populations by up to 20%.”
Text:
“Of the 23 priority bird species killed at renewable energy facilities, 11 (48%) were either highly or moderately vulnerable, experiencing a greater than or equal to 20% decline in the population growth rates.”

2
0

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