Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀Mar 3, 2023

A new study about seabirds and offshore wind turbines may surprise you.

A two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland combined radar data with cameras to identify the species of seabird and create a three-dimensional image of birds’ flight patterns and how they avoid offshore wind turbines’ rotor blades.

The study’s findings: Not a single collision between a bird and a rotor blade was recorded.

https://electrek.co/2023/03/02/seabirds-and-offshore-wind-turbines-vattenfall/

A new study about seabirds and offshore wind turbines may surprise you

Swedish power giant Vattenfall did a two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland – here’s what it found.

Electrek
Show threadKevin RussellMar 3, 2023

@bascule

But hooray hurrah for the Report. Everyone should bookmark the toot, open and bookmark the article, remember central facts, so when someone with tiny hands, or is leaking shoe polish from their scalp says wind generation kills birds, you can correct them.

Show threadtyxMar 3, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule Sorry for objecting, but be careful with generalizations. Report says that medium-to-large size birds do not collide under daylight conditions*, nothing about small migrating birds. Anyway I'd really happy to see this report as a peer-reviewed paper.

*they mention IR camera, but I've found little discussion of it's use after skimming the paper.

Show threadKevin RussellMar 3, 2023

@tyx @bascule

No, sorry, its just nonsense, (politely) made up by the oil industry. And its been KNOWN it is BS for more than decade

Power Lines: Between 12 and 64 million killed birds a year

Cats kill more than one billion birds each year

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds

Show threadtyxMar 4, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule Yup, I've seen these figures too, maybe even reposted. But you need to normalize raw counts per power line length, cats population etc.
I'm not against wind energy (despite working on bats and environmental risks assessment, for more than a decade. WT barotrauma on migration is a thing for bats and countermeasures are costly and complex). I'm just saying that you can not generalize *this* report as an ultimate argument.

Free-ranging feral/domestic cats are disaster and biosafety hazard and should be strictly prohibited everywhere. We shouldn't say that unless something is better than cats - it's fine.

Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 4, 2023
@tyx @kevinrns @bascule Every scientific study into the effect of domestic cats on bird populations found: Zero effect.
Moggies catch dying and diseased birds or fledglings that have fallen.
Urban environments (where moggies are) are deserts for birds. Bird mortality is proportional to human density, not cat density.
*Every* study looking for a link between domestic cats and bird deaths found no link.
Every single one.
Show threadKevin RussellMar 4, 2023

@nemo20000 @tyx @bascule

Im sorry I dont understand. Youre saying cats only catch dying birds?

Show threadTony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀Mar 4, 2023

@kevinrns it's also trivially refuted

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

> Domestic cats (Felis catus) are predators that humans have introduced globally1,2 and that have been listed among the 100 worst non-native invasive species in the world3. Free-ranging cats on islands have caused or contributed to 33 (14%) of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List

The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States - Nature Communications

Free-ranging domestic cats cause wildlife extinctions on islands, but their impact on wildlife in mainland areas is unclear. This study presents an estimate of mortality caused by cats in the United States, suggesting that 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals are killed annually.

Nature
Show threadKevin Russell

@bascule

Owls on the other hand are a top predator of mive, stouts and other mammals. There are owls that take cat sized mammals.

https://learnaboutpet.com/do-owls-eat-dogs/
"

Do Owls Eat Dogs? How Much Can An Owl Carry? 7 Cool Facts - 2023

Do owls eat dogs? Yes, owls are capable of eating very small dogs and puppies. But there are very few actual reports of owls eating dogs. It is extremely rare.

Learn About Pet
Mar 4, 2023 at 6:53pmWeb
Show threadPatty KimuraMar 4, 2023
@kevinrns @bascule On a completely different note, my 50# Aussie got in between a very large owl and a chipmunk. She had no idea, until that swooping owl's very large talons grazed the top of her head. She stood and watched it fly off in surprise until she realized what just happened and ran to the front steps to go inside, now, please.
Show threadKevin RussellMar 4, 2023

@pattykimura @bascule

Is it gone? What was that....... ?