In 1984 the California Energy Commission said “many institutional, engineering, environmental and economic issues must be resolved before the industry is secure and its growth can be assured.” Though it was not clearly stated, the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.
Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half – or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.
To hide this awful truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established – including high security, gag orders in leases and other agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.
For the industry this business plan has succeeded quite well in keeping a lid on the mortality problem. While the public has some understanding that birds are killed by wind turbines, it doesn’t have a clue about the real mortality numbers. And the industry gets rewarded with subsidies, and immunity from endangered species and other wildlife laws.
Early studies identified the extent of the problem
To fully grasp the wind turbine mortality problem, one needs to examine the 2004 report from the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA). The study lasted five years (1998-2003), and researchers did not have full access to all the Altamont turbines.
This careful, honest effort analyzed turbine characteristics in relation to mortality and estimated mortality from body counts compiled in careful searches. Researchers then adjusted mortality numbers by examining statistical data based on searcher efficiency and other factors, such as carcass removal by predators and scavengers. The report even suggested that the mortality estimates probably erred on the low side, due to missed carcasses and other human errors.
This study stands in marked contrast to studies being conducted today, especially the Wildlife Reporting Response System that is currently the only analysis happening or permitted at most wind farms. The WRRS is the power companies’ own fatality reporting system, and allows paid personnel to collect and count carcasses. It explains why mortality numbers are always on the low side and why many high-profile species are disappearing near turbine installations.
Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted: “We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow. One operator neglected to inform us when a golden eagle was removed as part of the WRRS. Based on these experiences, it is possible that we missed other carcasses that were removed.” (Chap. 3, pg. 52) It’s easy to see how human “errors” keep bird mortality low.
The APWRA study also documented that raptor food sources, turbine sizes and turbine placement all directly affect raptor mortality. It was thus able to identify many of the most dangerous turbines or groups of turbines – those with a history of killing golden eagles, kestrels, burrowing owls and red-tailed hawks.
Studies worsen as turbines proliferate and increase in size
The study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were “upgraded” with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades. These wind turbines offered what raptors perceived as intermediate to very big windows of opportunity to fly through what looked like open spaces between towers, but were actually within the space occupied by much longer, rapidly moving rotor blades.
The result was significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and “greater windows of time.” This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.
In fact, the illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10-20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow – but for their blade tips this translates into 100-200 mph!
All this was very important, because the industry was moving away from smaller turbines and installing much larger turbines, with much longer blades. However, the industry not only ignored the APWRA findings and rapidly installed thousands of these much larger turbines across America, despite their far greater dangers for birds and raptors. It also kept the APWRA out of the public’s awareness, and focused attention on new study results that reflected far less accurate (and honest) searches and surveys.
How the wind industry hides raptor mortality
The APWRA report also looked at the placement of carcasses in relation to turbine types. It documented that the distances carcasses were found from turbine towers increased significantly as turbine megawatt ratings and blade lengths increased. Based on sample of about 800 carcasses, the report revealed that birds were found an average of 94 feet (28.5) meters from 100-Kw turbines on towers 81 feet (24.6 meters) high.
Obviously, taller turbines with longer blades and faster blade tip speeds will catapult stricken birds much further. Figure 1 shows how a turbine 2.5 times larger will result in an average carcass distance of 372 feet (113.5 meters) from the tower. The wind industry is acutely aware of this.
That is why it has restricted search areas to 165 feet (50 meters) around its bigger turbines. This ensures that far fewer bodies will be found – and turbine operators will not need to explain away as many carcasses.
Recent mortality studies like those conducted at the Wolfe Island wind project (2.3-MW turbines) and Criterion project in Maryland (2.5-MW turbines) should have used searches 655 feet (200 meters) from turbines, just to find the bulk (75%-85%) of the fatalities. Of course, they did not do so. Instead, they restricted their searches to 165 feet – ensuring that they missed most raptor carcasses, and could issue statements claiming that their turbines were having minimal or “acceptable” effects on bird populations.
Other methods and biased formulas allow the industry to exclude or explain away carcasses. The latest Altamont Pass studies found far more bird carcasses, but Altamont operators still claim mortality declines by using new adjustment formulas and other exclusionary factors. (Figure 2) For example, industry analysts:
· Exclude certain carcasses. The 2005-2010 WRRS data show that 347 carcasses (primarily raptors) – plus 21 golden eagle carcasses – were excluded from mortality estimates, because industry personnel claimed they were found outside standard search procedures, said the “cause of death was unknown” (even when the birds’ heads had been sliced off), or removed carcasses ahead of a scheduled search.
· Exclude mortally wounded or crippled birds found during searches, even if they display turbine-related injuries. Even though many birds hit by turbine blades die within days, if they are still breathing when found, they are considered mobile – and thus not fatalities.
· Simply avoid searching near some of the most dangerous and lethal turbines. The industry justifies this exclusion by claiming that “the number of turbines monitored was reduced and spatially balanced for a randomized rolling panel design.” That this “reduction and balancing” excluded the most deadly portion of the Altamont facility was presented as coincidental or part of a proper scientific methodology.
The cold reality is that honest, scientific, accurate mortality studies in the Altamont Pass area would result in death tolls that would shock Americans. They would also raise serious questions about wind turbines throughout the United States, especially in major bird habitats like Oregon’s Shepherds Flat wind facility and the whooping cranes’ migratory corridor from Alberta, Canada, to Texas.
The techniques discussed here help ensure that “monitoring” studies match the facility operators’ desired conclusions, and mortality figures are kept at “acceptable” levels.
The bird mortality disaster must no longer be hidden
Not only has the wind industry never solved its environmental problem, it has been hiding at least 90% of this slaughter for decades. In fact, the universal problem of hiding bird (and bat) mortality goes from bad to intolerable beyond the Altamont Pass boundaries, because studies in other areas across North America are far less rigorous, or even nonexistent, and many new turbines are sited in prime bird and bat habitats.
The real death toll, as reported by Paul Driessen and others, is thousands of raptors a year – and up to 39 million birds and bats of all species annually in the United States alone, year after year! This is intolerable, and unsustainable. It is leading to the inevitable extinction of many species, at least in many habitats, and perhaps in the entire Lower 48 States.
Meanwhile, assorted “experts” continue to insist that the greatest threats to golden eagles are other factors like hikers getting too close to their nests, even when most abandoned nests in Southern California are nowhere near any hiking trails and wind turbines continue to slaughter eagles.
It is essential that people realize that no energy source comes anywhere close to killing as many raptors as wind energy does. No other energy companies are allowed to pick up bodies of rare and protected species from around their production sites on a day-to-day basis, year-in and year-out. No other energy producer has a several thousand mile mortality foot print (the highly endangered whooping cranes’ migratory corridor) like what wind energy has.
Once people understand all of this, they will rightfully demand that the wind industry obey the same environmental rules that all other industries must follow. This will require that wind turbines be sited only where the risk of bird deaths is minimal to zero; that turbines be replaced with new designs that birds recognize as obstacles and thus avoid; that fines be levied for every bird death, as is done with other industries; and that industrial wind facilities not be permitted where these requirements cannot be met.
America’s wildlife, and proper application of our environmental laws, require nothing less.
Who says God has no sense of humor; a sick sense of humor in many ways. The whole environmental thing started with birds, right, Silent Spring and all. Now they defend that which could actually cause extinction of some species. Not the polar bear though, that most favored of species except maybe for that smelt thingy in the Sacramento.
Big business used to oppose government adding to their costs through regulation. Now they don’t care but have joined hands with government to feed off the tax payer through crony-capitalism. The little guy used to be favored by the left but now suffers the most since he, and especially she, pay the most, as a percentage of income, for subsidies to the rich.
The third world of all things made them most sad but they have forbade all could improve the lives of people who live there, development of resources, DDT, genetically modified crops. They seem to love the dictators too.
Good article.
Jim thanks for exposing this. I read an Audubon study done of 5 turbines in NJ that killed an estimated 78 birds and bats a year including threaten and endangered raptors….an endangered Peregrine Falcon was killed only 25 breeding pair in the entire state..,..No News articles no hue and cry…just more calls to carpet the land in these industrial machines that produce energy 10%-40% of the time…and require 100% Carbon running backup. Another study commission in Delaware of the Lewes turbine could only find 2…as they didn’t want to walk in the tall grass or nearby marshy area….it was so laughably fraudulent it takes your breath away. The devastation of the Burrowing Owls and Golden Eagle in California…is heart sickening. In one report you see the hard number of deaths…then US fish and Wildlife….the apologist for the American Wind Energy Association Industrial Lobbying group….concludes they can’t understand the declining numbers…. Note Germany after spending hundred’s of billions of Euros on Wind and Solar energy has seen and increase in CO2 output of 1.6%, a 40% increase in electricity cost in 5 years. This is about money! It involves fooling people that want to do “Good” with the environment. I can’t believe more people aren’t shocked that the Holy Eagle protection acts is completely ignored for wind energy…it shows how duped people are. Keep getting the truth out!!!!
Yep, same old climate change denial gang; ‘industrial machines’, ‘carpet the land’ ‘Industrial lobbying group’, ‘duped people’ and an objection that it’s ‘about money’. When has anything in America not been about money?
Note Germany recently supplied ALL its energy needs for some hours from renewables, mostly wind, and most of the time a substantial percentage of its needs comes wind, with much more planned. You have been misled. There is a lot of money behind this misleading, it’s an industry funded by fossil fuel, and what you have been fed was dreamed up by its professional dissemblers. There actually IS an approaching crisis of climate caused by our actions, and if you’re actually concerned about birds or other animals [which I doubt] I can assure you more are going to suffer as a result of climate change than from our attempts to reduce fossil fuels. And if you actually care about species extinction, mourn the thousands of species we consign to extinction every year, and have been doing for a long time now. This ISN’T ABOUT MONEY.
And note that Germany has now gone BACK to coal, since the turbines stood idle for nearly 2 weeks. It is about money. Climate change is real. It has always changed and always will. The fallacy that man has any more than a miniscule impact on GLOBAL climate is ALL ABOUT MONEY.
I recently reviewed a bogus mortality study handed to me by some
very concerned citizens. Looking at the factors and flaws of the study, in
my opinion there was a kill rate of 500-600 fatalities per MW per Year. The bogus study claimed only about 6 percent of this figure. I believe an investigative story is going to hit soon about this pitiful study and how most of the mortality was hidden. Watch for it.
Please review this site:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/bladeless-windmills-a-new-source-of-wind-energy/16598?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660&ttag=e660
which details bladeless wind capture. Conversion funding could be had through public/corporate donation, government subsidy, tax rebate, recycling existing structures into bladeless components. Could be done.
Are you an idiot.
I suspect wind turbines are a killer to birds. It seems to me that the ideological and philosophical doctrine of environmentalism is a bane for both humans and nature.
Haven’t the activist ideologues really just give up the depressing politics? – J.P.K.
‘I suspect’ [your suspicions are of no consequence or interest to anyone else] ‘wind turbines are a killer to [sic] birds’ you sound literate, perhaps you mean killer of birds? Of course they are, as is anything sticking up which isn’t a tree. Your house is a bird killer, the windows too, many birds die every year, many other animals as well. Many are as a result of our activities such as driving cars and trucks, erecting communications masts, power cables etc etc. Coal fired power plants kill millions of birds and poison the air we breath.
It seems to me you haven’t a clue what ‘ideological and philosophical doctrine of environmentalism’ means. Your last sentence makes no sense either since it morphs from a question to an advice in a matter of a few words… ‘Haven’t the activist ideologues [sic] really just give up the depressing politics’.
Maybe you should wait for the “ground zero” folks operating the coal burning facilities to die or those living downwind before you rant ignorantly about the “poison”air.
Birds do not die that much birds are smarter then that
Based on that sentence,,,,,,,,never mind!
I believe once the truth behind that part of environmentalism is revealed, ideological delusions will be challenged – and some people should understand the situation as of now.
Also, be aware of the satanic doctrine of democracy: people should feel ashamed for not letting the situations unresolved anywhere in the world. Take action and do not ever give up, OK? – J.P.K.
This is humour right? Or are you a commentbot pretending to be human? I’m inclined to think the latter.
Oh my God … who wrote this? Was it professor backwards? “The study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were “upgraded” with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades.” The study you referred to, if it’s one of the several bona fide scientific ones and not the amatuer one, concluded something different; in fact, they ended up converting to bigger turbines because they reduce mortality. “The report even suggested that the mortality estimates probably erred on the low side, due to missed carcasses and other human errors” and also presented the contrary case as any good researcher would – all research has a plus/minus which depends on many factors including experimental error, sample size, sample window and confidence interval used.
“It is essential that people realize that no energy source comes anywhere close to killing as many raptors as wind energy does” – that’s provably untrue. Even in the specific case of bald eagles, mercury and arsenic from coal power may never be approached in raptor kill rates. After that, the kill rate of medium voltage transmission lines in raptor breeding territories has been measured at rates as high as 13 per mile per year. Egregious hyperbole does not help your case.
One example of the industry rigging studies and data can be illustrated by the mortality studies
conducted around communication towers. Depending on the height,
mortality search areas used in tower studies can be 10-20 times larger than with bogus wind turbine studies. The searches are daily and wind personnel are not picking up carcasses and hiding them. But most importantly, and what these fraudsters will not tell you, is that very few bats and raptors are ever killed by communication towers or guy wires. While wind turbines are killing them by the millions.
Great, I only read this article to fond out where the author got his numbers as so few of these articles point at any actual data or misrepresent estimates as actual data or merely inflate the numbers (I once traced a number that started at 47 and after a few retellings grew to 180). It appears he cites a prominent coal industry lobbiest and climate science denier to boot. Genius.
I am a long-time bird lover who owns a cat. I keep my cat indoors because I love both cats and birds, but I realize my cat is a bird killer. If everyone kept their cats indoors, 12 BILLION birds a year in North America would be spared. In contrast, the 13 million caused by turbines seems a tolerable price to pay for electricity. 13 million — or billion — dead birds is not justifiable in any way. Rail about this, if your cause is ornithological.
13 million?? In the US it’s 330,000 tops, and that’s a lot of turbines.
I never bought that 12 billion number in the first place.
Second, my cat, on rare occasions, brings in small common birds and they are still around despite the large and rapdly growing cat population.
Third, he never brings in Egrets, Falcons, Great Blue Herons or Whooping Cranes and those live here or migrate through every year. We got more Egrets than you can shake a stick at, just a few Cranes.
I hear that Whooping Cranes have been dwindling lately. West-Northwest of here is the largest concentration of wind turbines in the country. Right along the Cranes’ flyway. Hmmmm.
I agree that we should continually seek to reduce bird deaths from turbines and developers should be held to greater standards. But to say we shouldn’t have wind and these facilities should be shut down because of bird deaths misses the big picture. Guess what happens to thousands of entire species, not just individual birds, with climate change unchecked? Unless you’ve got great other ways to protect the world’s bird species…..we need every alternative energy source possible.
We are not talking sparrows, robins, chimney shifts!! We’re talking large endangered birds. The kind that would gladly make a meal of your cat.
You would not have to worry about a large eagle, hawk, or owl around a cat. The hawk would love to meet(eat) your fluffy! It is the wind farms that are the real killers of birds of prey!
Nice try!
http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608013085758456536&pid=1.7
http://michaelmurray.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/barred-owl-attacks-cat.jpeg
http://media.heavy.com/media/2010/06/animals-fighting-7.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D61gEwiPt38
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e141/jimbro999/IMG_3226a.jpg
I have routinely walked my dogs through an area of a large scale wind farm for years.
There is no fence or other obstruction to access at all, only small barricades around the base of the turbine masts—-to keep people from climbing on them I presume.
Other than an occasional work team I’ve never seen anyone else much in the area.
I’ve never noticed any birds laying around. According to this article, that is because there are workers who actively hide the carcasses from me. I suppose that is possible……………..they could hide them from me easy enough. However, hiding them from two gun dog trained Weimaraners is another matter entirely. That is completely and totally impossible. Even if someone came through, picked up the carcasses and buried them————-the dogs would find them faster and surer than if they had red beacon lights and sirens marking them. Humans would not find all of them(carcasses)—-dogs can’t be fooled, and they don’t miss. If there were dead birds, even hidden or buried—-the dogs would have found them.
My other two dogs are tracking trained German Shepherd Dogs. GSDs are herding dogs with a genetic predisposition to hunt and attack predators. If coyotes or other predators had been in the area scavenging fresh bird kills by wind turbines—the Shepherds would have gone NUTS. They don’t have to see the predators—they have a much better sense for that, they can SMELL them. For up to a week, and even more when conditions are right. They can not only know that they were there, they can follow every step that they took. Predators can’t hide from German Shepherds.
Wetdog,
They can certainly hide the carcasses from your dogs by simply hauling them away in the dead of night to a landfill or incinerator. If access is as open as you say, that would be the only hope of not getting caught.
The numbers at Altamont California have been around 100,000 and they freely admit to that. That is just one windfarm, albiet a really big one. (I drove through it once). Look up a US map of where the windfarms are and another of migratory flyways. You will note that they correspond well.
Tehachapi is another nightmare killing zone. It is also a migratory route and loaded with many hawks year round. And don’t forget Palm Springs.
Please note that since it was created, Altamont has always been by far the worst one in terms of bird issues. Not reasonable to extract conclusions about it to the whole industry.
I agree 100 percent with you..i have nev3er seen a single bird a few bunnies and mice
Wetdog…. I have friends that work or worked in the wind industry. The word passed on to new employees is don’t say anything about the dead birds or you won’t have a job. Hide them and don’t let anyone see you doing it. They warn them that if birds killed by turbines increase or make the news, the projects will be shut down and they will ALL be out of work. No one will speaks up because jobs are too hard to find and in a small town or rural areas, not only are jobs are hard to come by, but you grew up with the people that hired you or they are family. In the mountainous and rural brushy areas they are putting in turbines, scavengers such as coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, just to name a few, get the carcasses long before any employee, biologist or dog would find them, they count on that.
I don’t know much about birds, however I assume that birds have fast reflexes and are intelligent. Surely a detailed study of bird behaviour could determine a signalling system that is effective at keeping most birds away from the moving blades. Perhaps the technical solution might involve sensors linked to some kind of repulsive stimuli (air, water, sound etc) ejected from the leading edge of the blades….
Some birds are unlucky enough to collide with turbine blades, but at least here in the UK, the numbers are nothing like the amount the author is claiming. Birds also collide with buildings and road vehicles, and wind turbine collisions are no worse. Even so, before a wind farm development can go ahead in the UK, environmental impact assessments are made and bird surveys have to be conducted to ensure the location does not fall within important migration routes. Conservation groups have to give their approval before a wind farm can be built on a given site.
I know of one bird reserve in Scotland which looks after a population of red kites, which happens to be almost next door to one of Europe’s largest wind farms. There was some concern that the turbines would provide a hazard to the birds, but as reserve staff have told me, in 4 years there have only been 3 known cases of dead birds found with injuries attributable to turbine blade collisions.
Less than one death per year due to wind turbines is not a concern for the people running the reserve, who have a far bigger problem with birds being illegally shot or poisoned by unscrupulous land owners who are under the impression that raptors threaten their grouse and pheasant stocks. Ironically, those same landowners are quite often by the same sort of people that oppose wind farms.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, by far the biggest single conservation organisation in Europe, openly support wind farms (so long as they are appropriately located), because they know better than anybody that the biggest single threat facing bird populations today is climate change from C02 emissions, thanks to our continued over-reliance on fossil fuels.
We have areas here in California where despite migration paths of species deemed of special concern by the state, they put the turbines in regardless. They knew for a fact that the project was near or in the historic path or range of the protected California Condor habitat and Environmental Impact Reports stated it was unmitigable, but county supervisors have opted to override everything claiming the monetary benefit to the county is greater than every thing else. So they toss out the EIR. The way I see it, if there’s an issue with building in an area that has state and federal endangered species, then its just the wrong place for a wind project. When you encroach on forested areas where special species live or forage (not your backyard sparrow that your cat will kill) you will never see the blade killed birds and bats, other wildlife will feed on them long before anyone else can find it.
“Birds also collide with buildings”
You must be a spokesman for the wind industry?
That is their standard reply to bird kills. Actually, the birds that hit tall buildings and die are mostly small ones, I have never seen a hawk or falcon fly into a building and die.
However, I have seen more than enough pictures of what gets killed at wind farms.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=raptor+strike+kills+at+wind+farms&FORM=AWIR
Also, all the wind and solar farms in California and most other states are big scams and tax dodging write-offs that are costing tax payers billions!
Putting solar panels on existing building roofs is the best and safest way to go, but their is no land tax write-off in that! Read these articles –
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-wind-farm-scam/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-charge-3-wind-farm-145509203.html
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/111114-725969-rich-ivanpah-owners-want-taxpayers-to-pay-for-their-mistake.htm
http://www.pe.com/articles/energy-756044-government-plant.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/brightsource-solar-plant-sets-birds-on-fire-as-they-fly-overhead-1.2739512
“You must be a spokesman for the wind industry?”
With respect, that’s a typical response from a nimby.
No, I don’t work for for any energy company, but I do work in wildlife conservation and on occasion i have to carry out wildlife surveys as part of environmental impact assessments for major developments, be they buldings, roads or on one occasion, a wind farm.
It’s fine to assume that maybe one day solar power can solve all our energy problems, but that is not the reality at present. There is no single energy solution, and that applies as much to renewables as it already does in regards to conventional energy.
We use the resources we have at hand, and if you happen to live in a climate and latitude that gets ample sunlight all year round, then that’s great for you, but others parts of the world receive much less sunlight throughout the year. Scotland has the potential for harnessing 80% of its energy from wind and wave power, and we already make use of hydroelectric power in mountain areas with highest rainfall, predominantly on the west coast. Given that most tourists come here to enjoy the scenery and wildlife, then it’s generally a good idea for us to be investing cleaner, renewable energy solutions. Yes, there is an impact on wildlife, but it’s a sustainable impact so long as such developments aren’t inappropriately located. That’s where people like me come in.
I know of a wildlife reserve in Scotland with a high population of red kites. They were concerned when a wind farm development was proposed close to their location, but in the 6 years since it was built, they have only had an average 1 dead kite per year with injuries attributed to wind turbines. In comparison they have had well over a dozen illegally shot or poisoned. The funny thing is that many of the people engaging in raptor persecution in the UK (generally the owners and employees of sporting estates) are often the kind of people who also oppose wind farm developments.
As for birds of prey flying into buildings, I can assure you it does happen. Though it’s not likely to occur with eagle species, I known of a sparrowhawk and a barn owl that were both killed in collision with the same window.
So Jim Wiegand is to wind turbines what Lard Lawson is to climate change; a dissembler of lies, half truths and deliberate misinformation. Good to know where the anti-wind shills are copying all their halfwit lies from. I’ve even read posts that claimed turbines exploded the brains of bats! A bit of garbage about air pressure, and you have these monkeys enthralled, yet they’re basically anti-science [when it suits them]. Bats, like small birds, are very fast, agile creatures with remarkable aerial dexterity, the idea they could be snuck up on by a lumbering turbine blade is pretty silly. Cranes, eagles and other large birds may be more vulnerable, but not if they’re paying attention and as long as there’s not a maze of blades right on a migration flight path, there’s unlikely to be much threat.
Recently a small very uncommon bird appeared in the UK, twitchers descended and were photographin it when it swooped down and into a turbines blades! Thing is, this was one of those boat/caravan ones, that whir round like a fan, the bird was disorientated and lost, and an army of big-lensed if not brained twitchers were distracting it. Perhaps it was even putting on a show due to its instant fame. The antis crowed initially at this ‘proof’ of the killer potential of wind, but went quiet when it was pointed out the size of the turbine,
From the New York Times…”Because bats use sound to navigate and can detect moving objects, like insects, exceptionally well, many are better able than birds to avoid striking the blades. However, they can’t detect the invisible swath of low pressure left behind turning blades. Bats then fly into this area, and their internal airways rapidly expand, causing internal bleeding. This phenomenon, known as barotrauma, accounts for more than half of all turbine-related fatalities in bats, according to a 2008 paper in the
journal Current Biology.”
Jim Wiegand is an expert with facts that would stand up under any honest scientific scrutiny or court of law. Slandering me doesn’t change the truth.
I recommend that everyone read about more wind industry methods used to rig studies in “Exposing the wind energy genocide”and data.
Everyone should also read about the thousands of eagles being killed by turbines and blistering comments made by former FWS agents disgusted by this runaway industry. It is all in a recently published three part series on
Master Resource ………..”The voice of dead eagles”.
you are r.e.t.a.r.d.e.d. do you have a lot of metal fillings or lie around all day with a lead cap on? Please do the world a favor (or at least a personal one to me if you don’t mind) and stop talking and writing and just use hand signals when you’re hungry and need to poop.
What about the number of birds that are killed each year due to pollution from coal, and nuclear power. Or the number of birds that are killed by vehicles, hydro lines, or windows in buildings? Humans have been killing billions of birds every year for many many years. But now… When we finally start to do something good for our planet… By using a renewable energy resource people are worried about the birds. I don’t know, but I would choose wind power over nuclear or coal any day!! Why don’t we try to turn out the lights at night? That would reduce the amount of power we needed, save a bunch of birds lives… And allow us to see the stars again. Pick your battles people!
By being aware of these deaths, and being concerned maybe we could come up with a better design that doesn’t kill them
ok
Somebody needs to adjust his tin-foil hat.
People, people, people,,,, Were not talking starlings, were not talking robins or sparrows. Wake up!!!! Were talking rare birds!!! were talking big birds, big enough to carry your cats away. Were talking raptors, bald eagles, RARE birds. Were talking wind farms in migratory paths!!!
Most of you will never get it. You act like it’s nothing since you think wind power is SOOOO good. A lot of effort goes into hiding the facts. Don’t count the maimed birds,,,they’re still living!! Don’t count the carcasses beyond 50 meters!! How many are carried away by scavengers? Why not send someone out to toss the carcasses beyond the 50 meter radius before the inspections?
If it’s so good,,,,why all the subsidies?? If it’s so good, why don’t they get fined by the EPA?
I hate people who bury their head in the sand in order to promote something they THINK is good when in fact it’s doing more damage than coal, oil, gas, or nuclear combined could ever do.
I recommend that everyone read about more wind industry methods used
to rig studies in “Exposing the wind energy genocide”and data.
Everyone should also read about the thousands of bald and golden eagles being killed by turbinesand blistering comments made by former FWS agents disgusted by this runaway industry. Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been sent to the National Eagle Repository. It is all in a recently published three part series onMaster Resource ………..”The voice of dead eagles”.
Beyond the deaths, the 800 pound rare earth magnet in each turbine requires a lot of mining and processing. Concentrating the rare Earth metals also concentrates radioactive materials. Each 800 pound magnet results in the concentration of 800 pounds of radiation and vast amounts of toxic liquid waste.
A nightmare waiting to happen.
Spillage of those materials would make an oil spill look like a birthday party.
I guess we have a new industry/tax dollar ripoff in the making.The cleanup from the tear-down of these monsters.
They are not monsters Jim and they can be maintained and operated indefinitely. 2 died as a direct result of Fukushima. About 30 or 40 from Chernobyl and there has been no increase in cancer deaths for 30 years. A few have died from thyroid cancers.
Here is the future: LFTR, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. THay were built and tested back in the 60s
I think he was talking about rare earth mining industrial spills (which WOULD be a nightmare). Its very similar to the kind of waste that’s created during Lithium excavation; that’s the primary source of battery banks for electric vehicles, by the way. Huge messes with that, but hey, electric cars!
What magnet? Are you talking about permanent magnet generator systems? Not everyone uses those, you know; greener solutions like DFIG systems are just as viable, and are in place in the lot of the US.
I can sympathize. However, I have an honest question: Can you think of any other means of power generation that has less impact? I’m in green energy; wind specifically, but am always interested in new technologies that are better for the local ecosystem and the global biosphere as a whole. If you’ve got something, can you share it please?
Nothing kills eagles and rare bids species like a wind turbine does. If it were not for rigged and fraudulent research you would realize that. So the answer to your question is …… Any other form of energy. Another facet of the fraudulent research that is never discussed in the media, is that wind energy is such a pitiful source of energy. There can and never will be enough turbines built. But my god what an ugly world it will be if this truth is not disclosed to the public.
True;seems virtually everything man does has a negative impact on wildlife and the planet ,almost reduced to picking the lesser of the evils
Kirk, you are exactly correct. Without getting philosophical, every living organism on this planet has a positive or negative effect on every other. The only correct choices are the ones that are studied and researched in order to weight the pros and cons.
We can see and understand the dead endangered species killed by wind turbines. We can see and measure the radioactive and toxic pools created. We can measure the cadmium carcinogens dumped into our aquifers from the production of solar cells in California.
How many people have “cause of death – oil, gas, or coal fossil fuel plants” on their death certificate? how many people have “cause of death – climate change or global warming”? How many people have “cause of death – nuclear power plants”?
5 people died as a direct result of the fukushima nuclear disaster and one of those died from a heart attack and two from being washed away in the receding tsunami. disaster?
About 30 or 40 died directly from Chernobyl. Aside from a few extra thyroid cancers, there has been no increase in cancers over the past 30 years!
There are people who lie, distort, and exaggerate to promote their agendas. It’s our job to weed through the shit to find the truth.
Here is our brightest future: LFTRs. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Simple, everlasting, cheap, modular, no expensive encapsulated fuels or pressure vessels and containment buildings.
The single, safest, most positive method of making electricity. Why has no one heard about them? They’ve been built and tested already. Maybe it’s because you can’t make nuclear weapons from them.
True, then there is the worry if something truly better comes along for the environment and sustainability and cheaper that the people with the money and the power will keep it from happening because they can’t make billions from it.it seems obvious to me and I don’t think I’m being unreasonable if you look close enough ,humans continually fail when it comes to doing the obviously right thing ,in favor of choosing the thing that makes the most money.why should that surprises us,it is basically the God ,and mantra of capitalism.
We seem to worship our capitalist system the so-called free market which really is not free but just another fraud and spin term.there’s nothing in capitalism about being fair to your employees ,just to society ,giving back ,sustainability ,it’s all about making as much money as you can even if that means price gouging ,buying out your competition ,and working towards a monopoly.Exxon makes $40 billion a year more than a lot of countries ,they’re going to protect that income at all costs, if some new technology was going to eliminate those profits ,and they could not control it ,or make as much money, they certainly would try to keep it off the market even if it was the wrong thing to do.
I predict that capitalism(organized theft) will totally fall apart about 2025.
To save our Earth we are going to have to make non-capitalist choices if we want to live. Otherwise, you will be the last generation of humans on the planet. How lucky you are!
Only thing that will matter at 120 degrees
Food
Water
Shelter
Everything else will become WORTHLESS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW2XtG7hxF0
Do you work? Do you do it for the good of others or to support yourself? That is capitalism. It relies on proven human nature unlike all the utopian alternatives. And it is never going away because it is the only system that works. Ask the Chinese.
No Kirk, I have to admit that “power and money” did delay the Thorium reactor for 60 years and oil companies bought out electric trolley systems, but remember that capitalism is entirely responsible for the revival of the LFTR project.
Thorium is not the lesser of evils. I believe it is the most positive thing I’ve ever heard and I worked at producing medical products in a nuclear reactor for 30 years.
Youtube “Kirk Sorenson”. Another Kirk!
or visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3pxPP3m0k0
Am, am I high? Is this an environmental web page that is having an ongoing, positive talk about nuclear power?
HOLY SHIT! The day has come! I’ve been waiting for this for like 20 years! Get out there! Spread the good word about Gen IV systems! Show ’em the banana proof! Read the Fukushima disaster report to people like a goddamn bedtime story, and be sure to emphasize the human negligence as the main contributing factor! Let’s undo all the bad The China Syndrome did these past 40 years, and get to a cleaner source like LFTRs; and SWR/TWRs that eat PWR/BWR waste!
When the fuck did nuclear become the green source of choice?
I’ve come to the opinion that riding-out global warming (while reducing fossil fuels in other ways, especially with more birth control) is a much better plan than turning the countryside into an industrial wasteland. Those who lament the loss of coastlines seem to care little about the general look of the Earth. Their aesthetic values have no consistency.
I also don’t buy into claims that fossil fuels are killing (or will kill) more birds and bats than giant machines that directly interfere with their flight. Of all the species that could adapt to AGW, flying ones seem best suited to finding higher ground.
Funny how they close these fields down to hikers and bird watchers now. And that was right after the reports of dead birds years ago.
These wind farms now have hired employees go out each morning and pick-up and get rid of the evidence.
These are Federally protected birds under the migratory act. Does Google actually think they won’t have anymore bird kills since they bought it?
Nothing worse than bad PR and dead animal pictures to kill sales of your devices, ads, and software. VERY BAD move on their part.
Hikers aren’t permitted around there because towers are DANGEROUS TO PEOPLE, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. High altitude icing on blades can crush a car once it’s ejected off a blade, let alone a human. High voltage switch gears will fry an individual. And then there’s always the worry of copper strippers, not a few of which have cut locks and torn apart towers, and not a few of which have fried themselves trying to cut energized equipment.
Sooo, you’re telling me that raptors, highly-tuned birds of prey with millions of years of evolutionary adaptation to high altitude flight and some of the most amazing eyesight in the animal kingdom above water, finely tuned biological machines that are capable of feeling and taking advantage of minute thermal and wind microcurrents in order to better find and stalk prey hundreds or thousands of feet in the air, can’t see, hear, or feel massive, dynamic pressure changes caused by giant, multi-ton swinging blades and not avoid them? Are you implying that birds are retarded, or are simply lose over 60 million years of evolutionary behavior and traits specifically designed for such hazards?
I built Shepard’s Flat; Horseshoe Bend specifically. There were teams of environmental scientists on site. We were given stern warnings regarding disturbing wildlife, with roving teams to ensure compliance was met, and we all took it VERY seriously. Our bosses made it adamantly clear that the only thing of higher import than environmental and cultural impact (there was a group of paleontologists on site too; they thought that there were stone mounds that might have been Indian burial grounds and erected barriers to prevent damage, but they turned out to just be piles of rock) was environmental awareness. Our site was shut down for a week because somebody saw a Gold Eagle (this, I might add, was his only job on site: bird spotter) until environmental engineers and GE site planners could determine its breeding habitat and range; the re-arranged the expansion for it, abandoning 3 laid foundations (that’s about $300,000 worth of time and materials) to stay out of its habitat.
Now, I’m not saying it’s perfect; nothing is. I saw the impact in West Virginia when a bat died to a blade strike, and there was none of this gag-ordering and any other crap (although the state regulatory commission did catch a group planting bat carcasses near tower sites; not saying the first wan’t legitimate, mind you). I’ve also seen flocks of starlings playing in the downdraft of the passing blades. I suppose the question that needs to be asked is twofold:
1. Is this method less impactful to the environment than other current systems for the ecosystem it is in, which another, even less impactful system cannot be placed in?
2. Do you have any ideas for another method of power generation that has less impact?
Also, are you actually serious about your statement of wind being more damaging than just about all other forms of power generation (notably excluding hydroelectric, which kills fish) combined? Can you even come close to backing that statement up?
Sorry for the delay. I was having fun with some high grade bacterial infection with skyrocketing white blood cell counts and some grand mals to kick things off. To me LFTRs are the key. liquid flouride is abundant on the Earth and Moon. They can be built modular (build it here, ship it there!). A breeder! It makes fissionable U-133 while it is running. Both reactor and building containments are greatly simplified. The radioactive materials are chemically being drawn off for decay and storage. If there is a leak, the fuel solidifies forming a plug. Think the guys name is Sorenson.
He did a few videos.
Even if you rationalize away bird deaths and bat deaths (USGS says wind turbines kill more bats than any other machines) are you also indifferent to the massive landscape and oceanscape destruction? I can’t fathom how anyone aligned with protecting the environment would make excuses for such obvious blight. It’s a big mystery of this century. Yes, we need to reduce CO2. No, we don’t need to industrialize half the world’s scenery to do it! Solar on existing buildings is much better.
Additionally, wind turbines can’t exist without fossil fuels for their production, installation and maintenance. Their image of being “low carbon” machines is absurd on the face of it. One need only look at the size and numbers of the damned things to know something’s not right with modern environmentalism.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99e166ce9014be447ed69fc119a97a3ae40d11784918d8a7d0c0037f6dda821b.jpg
now only if we could get the dumb hippies to walk into the turbines. Darwinism at work !
The large bird deaths were mostly related to the fast moving blades of 1970’s technology…it only takes 1 giant turbine to equal the power from 15 of the smaller faster moving blades and the Altamont farm is replacing the older small faster moving towers with the new slower moving blades. From what I’ve read, the new wind blade towers in Indiana are only finding 2-4 dead birds a year around them. Why put a hysterical story out that sounds alarmist? If there were that many birds dying, you’d think there would be piles of birds under the blades and someone would have gotten a camera out and filmed it?? Now let’s put the numbers up for all the oil spills and waste pits the fossil fuel industry leaves around and see how many birds die there?
http://www.livescience.com/31995-how-do-wind-turbines-kill-birds.html
absolutely tim…West Houston Geo get your facts straight
Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been sent to the National Eagle Repository. Wind farms are their primary supplier.
Aside from the bird deaths which you can argue about ad infinitum. Aside from the safer slower blades you claim, each 5MW wind turbine contains an 800 pound rare earth magnet. Why Don’t you Google “wind turbine toxic or radioactive waste”!
Why Don’t you go to YouTube and search for “bird turbine death”. Your another libtard blatant liar! The videos exist. You are too dimwitted to know how to watch them. Here’s your track record:
Artic will melt – FALSE
Antartic is melting – FALSE
Ocean is rising – FALSE
Polar bears are dying – FALSE
Temperatures are rising – FALSE
Wind turbines are cheap, safe, and clean – FALSE
People have died from a hole in the ozone – FALSE
97% of scientists believe in AGW – FALSE
The frequency and strength of storms will increase – FALSE
NOT A BAD RECORD!
Since you are for fracking for gas, more oil production and coal production, I can only find your results skeptical, at best.
Big business is still in play here.
Almost total BS, some people will spin anything for attention. The first hint is when the website name has “fact” in it. Then the “!” in the headline. All a feeble attempt at misinformation. There are some small bits of truth in the article.. that are spun in to absolutely ridiculous claims. Anyone with half a brain can see this story is BS.
Not just total BS, total lack of science.
Looks like you happen to have just half a brain.
what has taken place with the wind industryis a perfect example of how rigged Science works and how the ignorant are lied to.
One example of this can be illustrated by the mortality studies conducted around communication towers. Depending on the height, mortality search areas
used in tower studies can be 10-20 times bigger than with bogus wind turbine
studies. The searches are daily and wind personnel are not picking up carcasses
and hiding them. But most importantly, and what these fraudsters will not tell
you, is that very few bats and raptors are ever killed by communication towers
or guy wires. While wind turbines are killing them by the millions.
Search areas on the larger turbines should be 200-250 meters out from towers in every direction. The industry has many other slimy tricks that are used to hide or
not report mortality. Some studies I have looked have likely concealed tens of
thousand of fatalities. I recently looked over a 7 month study that I believe concealed over 25,000 bat fatalities and over 5000 bird fatalities. This was the mortality of just 28 2.5 MW turbines. Their tiny search areas around the huge turbines amounted to about 68% of a 50 distance from towers. These turbines had blades 50 meters in length.
In the mortality report for these turbines it was claimed that searchers systematically searched along predetermined in transects. As least that is what
they claimed in the study. I was told something completely different by an
eyewitness (written statement) that he observed on two separate occasions,
wind personnel randomly picking up carcasses from around turbines that were at
the time having formal mortality surveys. Two people were seen quickly picking
up carcasses from the clear areas (roads and graveled areas) around the
turbines. They were seen dumping carcasses in a bucket and driving off to the
next turbine. They were not seen with a pen, no hand held devices, a computer,
no notebooks, they did nothing but grab bodies and drive off.
The man even talked with them. They did not appear to be professional and barely spoke English. He also said he would be willing to testify. This reported activity
could have been an organized pre-scan for carcasses ahead of formal searches.
What ever one chooses to believe this observed activity was nothing close to being scientific and took place when formal searches were being conducted on these turbines in Maryland.
Theseturbines are also located in the known habitat of the endangered Indiana bat. How many of the unreported 25,000 bats were of this species? We will never know and this is by design.
I recommend that everyone read about wind industry methods used to rig studies in “Exposing the wind energy genocide”and data.
Everyone should also read about the thousands of eagles being killed by turbines and blistering comments made by former FWS agents disgusted by this runaway industry. It is all in a recently published three part series on Master Resource ………..”The voice of dead eagles”.
what about the tens of thousands that are electrocuted on pow
erlines in this country.?
Can’t you read? What about the millions killed and hidden by the industry.
By the electricity produced by the turbines !
No, powerline poles
Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been sent to the National Eagle Repository. Everyone should read about the thousands of bald and golden eagles being killed by turbines and blistering comments made by former FWS
agents disgusted by this runaway industry. It is all in a recently published three part series on Master Resource ………..”The voice of dead eagles”.
Besides the extinction of species coming from wind turbines here is another nightmare scenario to think about. It would take 3-4 million 2 MW turbines,
running at 25% capacity, just to replace the fossil fuel used by vehicles today in America. But by the time they were built it would take another 500,000-1,000,000 of these turbines to make up for an increasing population. In the US we currently have the installed equivalent of 31,000 of these turbines.
Jim Wiegand, Please contact me re: possible solutions for this serious problem. [email protected] or forward my contact info to someone that you consider may benefit from some suggestions.
Even solar power sites are frying birds.
America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis. Previous estimates of bird kills have varied, he says, but “500 million is a number that has been thrown around a lot.”
If a bird can’t see those huge things they probably wouldn’t last long anyway. They fly in and around the Forrest for goodness sakes.
People beware Jim Wiegand. virtually all his references are to his OWN studies. Nuclear kills far more birds. Fossil 27 times as many.
Notice this article has not ONE reference. Just fear and doubt.
Fossil-fueled facilities are 17-34 times more dangerous to birds on a per GWh basis than wind power. Wind turbines may have killed about 7000 birds, but fossil-fueled stations killed 14.5 million and nuclear 327,000.http://www.nukefree.org/news/avianmortalityfromwindpower,fossil-fuel,andnuclearelectricity
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/26/wind-farm-bird-deaths-fossil-fuel-nuclear-bird-deaths/ nuke 2.2 times wind per energy unit, and fossils 34 times wind.
http://planetsave.com/2012/01/06/bird-deaths-explained-usda-killing-them/
People also seem to forget that birds kill birds.
Cats kill 200M birds. Buildings, cars, wires, all millions. http://www.petsandwildlifeforum.com/showthread.php?t=1261
But it’s actually much more than that.
Every year the population of birds roughly doubles, then dies back to about the same as before. The niche for birds is full, they have to die, The environment cannot sustain more.
http://www.biosci.missouri.edu/avianecology/courses/avianecology/readings/Karr_JR_1990.pdf Survival rates are not different that forest with no civilization.
Now, humans value certain birds over others. We in fact deliberately kill certain species and birds in the “wrong” places. That’s why we sort by species first off. I agree we should protect endangered birds, so all the techniques we have should be used within reason.
Since 1985 there has not been one credible or scientific mortality study conducted by the wind industry.
For those that can not remember, the first big lie from this industry started in the late 1970’s with claims that wind energy would get us off Middle Eastern oil. Of course looking back over 4 decades with 20/20 hindsight we now know that wind energy has had a zero impact on our consumption of this oil.
Then over time this lie evolved to the messianic lie about wind energy being
able help to save mankind by fixing climate change. It is hard to imagine such
stupidity when a single blade of grass will produce more O2 than every wind
turbine that will ever be made.
Another facet of the fraudulent wind energy research that is never discussed in the media is that wind energy is such a pitiful source of energy. There can and never will be enough turbines built. But my god what an ugly world it will be if this truth is
not disclosed to the public.
Then there is the hidden blade strike mortality that has put dozens of species on a
fast track to extinction, all being hidden behind a culture of not reporting fatalities
and the research of shill experts that should be sitting in prison.
In the end the lies do not matter as long as these turbines get sold to the public. The lies do not matter because there is no accountability for these fraudsters. Just like a used care salesman that once confessed to me………..”Promise them anything just make the deal.”
A few weeks ago, I had a lengthy meeting with a wind industry employee who is
disgusted by the large numbers of eagles being killed. He told me about a culture of not reporting high priority carcasses. As I looked over dozens of images of chopped up eagles, this employee also told me that if too many carcasses are found or reported, the conscientious employee could expect to be laid off or fired.
For all readers that care about the future, read about this fraudulent industry
in my many articles. These articles below clearly explain the environmental destruction, the corruption and fraud taking place with Wind energy. In these articles is proof that none of the industry’s studies since 1985 have been scientific and clearly rigged to hide mortality.
Money from Dead Eagles: Audubon Society on the Take
https://www.masterresource.org/audubon-society/money-dead-eagles-aubudon/
This article below discusses the 31,000 (2015 numbers) unaccounted for eagle carcasses that have been sent to the Denver Repository since 1997. In this 3 part article even former FWS agents speak out………. “Voice of Dead eagles”
Additional hidden eagle carcass information and dismal wind energy production
numbers are available for congress in this 2 part article “Clean Energy
Producers Act of 2015 (H.R. 493): Eagle Slaughter Amnesty for Industrial Wind”.
Here is an excellent article that describes some of the various methods being
used to rig wind industry mortality data. “Exposing the wind industry
genocide” – The ECOReport
A good reference article that describes some of the various methods being used to
rig wind industry mortality data. Big Wind
& Avian Mortality (Part I & Part 2)
This article that exposes a rapidly declining golden eagle population
“EAGLE EXPERT WARNS OF POPULATION COLLAPSE”
An article that discusses some of the history behind the industry rigged
research. “THE 28 YEAR WIND INDUSTRY COVER-UP” Parts 1&2
A very good article about wimpy lawsuits that let this industry off the hook.
“Bald and Golden Eagles Victorious: Court Invalidates 30-Year “Eagle Take”
Rule” (feds vs. federal law)
Readers will be further enlightened about the industry’s rigged research if
they view the YouTube video ……………..”Cheeseburgers and the wind
industry”.
Why is it no one agrees with Jim Wiegand?
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/26/wind-farm-bird-deaths-fossil-fuel-nuclear-bird-deaths/
http://www.nukefree.org/news/Avianmortalityfromwindpower%2Cfossil-fuel%2Candnuclearelectricity total avian deaths per GWh for nuclear power plants at about 0.416. wind 0.279 avian deaths per GWh.
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/05/20/why-coal-and-nuclear-plants-kill-far-more-birds-than-wind-power/
http://www.wwww.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/policy/windfarms/index.aspx
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds supports wind power.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/domestic-cats-kill-billions-mice-birds-annually-study_n_2575833.html
cats kill billions http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/domestic-cats-kill-billions-mice-birds-annually-study_n_2575833.html
This is a good article, but the general tone of this site is anti-science (rather, anti nature). Lots of climate change denial and other right-wing opinions. It’s too bad that wind power opposition is tangled up with a general lack of respect for nature. People who really respect nature see that it’s being degraded by many things, not A = good, B = bad.
OK, but so do smoke stacks kill birds.