Mastodawn

Janmicham Mar 5, 2023

Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀

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

Sharonbw stands with Minnesota Mar 3, 2023

Preach! The people here on the Eastern Shore of MD are using every excuse in the book to stop wind turbines off the coast. They have been pushing the "turbines harm the birds" narrative for a while now. Recently they have grabbed onto the fact that many whales along the east coast have beached + died this winter. They are blaming turbines, even though none are erected yet + agencies such as NOAA have said collisions by ships is the most likely culprit.

The Frog Mar 4, 2023

@Sharonbw @bascule I really struggle to understand how normal folks *who gain absolutely nothing* from our current fossil fuel based energy production go to some lengths to protest against better alternatives...

ecsd Mar 5, 2023

@Lily_and_Frog @Sharonbw @bascule

I suggest it's because people implicitly recognize that it's all a house of cards. That if "we" can end the fossil fuel industry, we can end much more (and have to pay attention to the need to): the military-industrial complex, the security state, the CIA and FBI, the defense budget, endless wars, corporate predation, you know, all that stuff.

"I'd rather live out the rest of my days living in the comfortable matrix being killed only slowly, than risk the various convulsions that have to happen to truly liberate humankind." Something like that.

mpmaddog Mar 3, 2023

@bascule Seems between flight patterns and redesign of Turbinrs you can protect them...

Kevin Russell Mar 3, 2023

I am not surprised. Some birds are the fastest things alive, Hawks can do flight stunts at fifty miles an hour, birds can catch fish dropped by other birds.

The blades of the windmills go about the speed of buses, which despite numbering in the tens of thousands, do not report bird strikes

Tazor Mar 3, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule

The tip of a 115 meter blade is moving a bit faster than a bus, over 300 km per hour. But your point stands.

Mike Meadway 🇺🇸 🇩🇰 🇬🇧Mar 3, 2023

@Tazor @kevinrns @bascule 300 kph? Wow...had no idea they were that fast!

Tazor Mar 3, 2023

@mmeadway @kevinrns @bascule

When you rotate something as long as a football field, it moves fast, hehe.

Mike Meadway 🇺🇸 🇩🇰 🇬🇧Mar 3, 2023

@Tazor @kevinrns @bascule The speed is deceptive as you watch the blades rotate. It never occurred to me to do the math, but yes...that blade tip is really moving along.

I keep forgetting how big those blades are.

Inky Tartars Mar 3, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule @mmeadway @Tazor

Agree. The apparent “slowness” of large turbines is an optical illusion. At the tips, those things are really moving.

Kevin Russell Mar 3, 2023

@mmeadway @Tazor @bascule

Tip speed. The very very end of a blade rotating slowly at the hub, but the blade is longer than an US football field, 117 yards, 107 meters.

Kevin Russell Mar 3, 2023

@Tazor @bascule

Yes, Autobahn Buses Dont Kill Birds either

ecsd Mar 6, 2023

@Tazor @kevinrns @bascule

??
115 meters is longer than a football field. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of a wind turbine with a blade longer than a football field. But I'm prepared to be surprised.

Your point stands.

{looks it up:}
Oh my, they do exist:

Kevin Russell Mar 3, 2023

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.

tyx Mar 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.

Kevin Russell Mar 3, 2023

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

tyx Mar 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.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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.

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

@nemo20000 @tyx @bascule

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

Tony “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

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

Cats are sharks. Sharks, though some hate them, are vital control systems, both for population crises and evolution. You can look up why sharks arent "animals we have decided dont matter" by looking up shark with "Top Predator"

Bird populations are controlled by a lot of things, the top is probably food.

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

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

Patty Kimura Mar 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.

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

@pattykimura @bascule

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

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

Cat Stans acting like Exxon, but for cats!

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns That study states:
“Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality” – that’s FERAL cats.
It also fails to do any analysis of the health of the birds taken by domestic cats, so this refutes nothing.
The same paper states “window and building collisions have been suggested to cause even greater mortality”.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says: “[domestic] cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations” https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-for-wildlife/animal-deterrents/cats-and-garden-birds/are-cats-causing-bird-declines/

How Many Birds do Cats Kill? UK Bird Declines - The RSPB

Estimates of how many birds are killed by cats each year vary. The most frequently caught birds are probably house sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds and starlings

The RSPB

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns A British study found that birds killed by domestic cats on average had less fat and muscle than birds killed by collisions with windows. The fat and muscle scores were so low that the birds were “in dire trouble before they got killed”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00836.x
A Danish study concluded “Prey had consistently smaller spleens than non-prey, implying that they had weak immune systems.”: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004420050972

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns The lead researcher on that first study stated “I just categorically say there is no evidence of an impact [of domestic cats on wildlife].”
A study on the effect of domestic cats on an adjacent nature preserve found “There was no relationship between the number of cats detected in an area and the local small mammal abundance or rodent seed predation rates” https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1017/S1367943004001489

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns This Australian study found that domestic dogs were slightly more likely to kill birds than domestic cats, but found no consequent effect on bird populations by EITHER. (It is also very disaparaging of the study you selected): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.731689/full
Please be aware that MANY articles and publications conflate the species “felis catus” with “domestic cat”, when they are primarily discussing FERAL cats, and NOT domestic cats.

Do Pet Cats Deserve the Disproportionate Blame for Wildlife Predation Compared to Pet Dogs?

Concerns about the impact of pet dogs and cats on native wildlife populations have shaped pet control legislation, despite there being scant research of their impact in urban areas. Using an online questionnaire, we obtained data from 662 Australian dog and cat owners who had observed their pets capture prey in the previous 6 months. Of the pets observed to catch prey, dogs caught a median of 2 mammals, 2 birds, 2 reptiles, and 3 amphibians, whereas cats caught a median of 3 mammals, 2 birds, 4 reptiles, and 2 amphibians. Of mammals caught by dogs and cats, 88 and 93%, respectively, were identifiable as introduced mice, rats, and rabbits. Of pets that caught prey, a substantial proportion caught native animals (62% of dogs and 47% of cats). However, median numbers of native animals caught per dog (2) or cat (3) over 6 months were low. Small skinks and lizards comprised the greatest proportion for dogs and cats, but dogs also caught larger native prey (e.g., possums, kangaroos, and wallabies). Most birds caught by dogs and cats were common or introduced (dogs: crested pigeons and lorikeets; cats: noisy miners and rosellas). To design measures that will effectively protect Australia's native wildlife, thorough understanding of the role dogs and cats play in Australian urban ecosystems is required. These findings can inform that understanding, and assist with development of management strategies for urban dogs and cats, and as well as directing resources to efforts that will ...

Frontiers

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns So I reiterate: EVERY study that tried to find a link between domestic cats – owned, fed, pets – and declines in local bird populations FAILED to find any evidence of a significant link.

Meanwhile the evidence of the effect of windows, buildings, traffic, pesticides and monoculture urban environments is overwhelming.

Please stop repeating unscientific guff.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns A much more nuanced discussion, with many citations, notes “high predation rates do not equate to population declines—as many scientists have noted.”: http://www.voxfelina.com/2011/02/exceptional-predator/

Exceptional Predator — Vox Felina

Reframing the TNR debate

Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀Mar 5, 2023

@nemo20000 @kevinrns

To reiterate... your claim:

"Every scientific study into the effect of domestic cats on bird populations found: Zero effect."

The paper:

"Domestic cats (Felis catus) are predators that humans have introduced globally and that have been listed among the 100 worst non-native invasive species in the world"

You couldn't be more wrong. Now move along.

lotteheartplural

cinny_heart_plural

@bascule @nemo20000 @kevinrns also, where did the feral cats come from? that’s right: owned cats who are allowed outside unsupervised, or abandoned, who then start hunting wildlife and having kids with other feral cats. Also the article you link to talks about the united kingdom which both has a different ecosystem and had domestic cats introduced by the romans over a millenia ago

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@charlotte @bascule @kevinrns You are right to point out that there can be differences from location to location. The original poster did not.
However, I’d still encourage you to find any study that discerns between owned cats and feral cats, and also studies the health of any prey.
The other anthropological causes of bird mortality are far more significant. This is a useful ‘dead cat’ by people with another agenda (whatever that may be).

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@charlotte @bascule @kevinrns Owned cats are overwhelmingly spayed or neutered, so although you are correct that these feral populations exist BECAUSE of humans, it’s not because of the current crop of pet animals.

John Brophy Mar 4, 2023

@nemo20000 @tyx I've never seen someone speak with such confidence about something they know nothing about. I'm sure you like cats, but there are plenty of published studies showing they're a disaster for birds.

tyx Mar 4, 2023

@jk001 @nemo20000 "Cats live in cities, which are ecological deserts anyway". Well. I'll tell this joke at local urban bird census group.

And sure there are no cats in rural areas. And no feral cats.

We need more awareness for toxoplasma mental effects.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@tyx @jk001 I don’t know how to get you to read the actual words.

I specified DOMESTIC cats – OWNED, FED MOGGIES – not feral cats.

If you have any scientific studies finding that pet cats have a detrimental effect on bird populations would you be kind enough to cite some, as I have done with half a dozen that show NO LINK.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@jk001 @tyx Then cite some that show a link between OWNED cats and bird population decline.

I’ve cited half a dozen that found NO LINK WHATSOEVER.

Ball in your court.

John Brophy Mar 5, 2023

@nemo20000 @tyx After the most meagre of searches...

https://www.academia.edu/download/48108870/j.biocon.2009.09.01320160816-12727-m6v5yo.pdf

And, yes, it's domestic cats.

If you want to argue, go collect some data yourself and rebut these researchers rather than spout nonsense online.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@jk001 @tyx I get a 404.

Do read the half dozen papers I’ve already cited.

nemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚Mar 5, 2023

@jk001 @tyx I’m aware that the conflation of “domestic cat” with “felis catus” is causing some confusion.

To clarify, by “domestic cat” I do mean house cats – owned, fed pets. I do not mean feral cats.

Andy McKay Mar 4, 2023

@tyx @kevinrns @bascule And it can only be applied to seabirds that exist in the study area.

We know from North American land-based studies that there are completely different risk profiles for birds in other countries.

Andy McKay Mar 4, 2023

@tyx @kevinrns @bascule "The movements of herring gulls, gannets, kittiwakes, and great black-backed gulls were studied in detail from April to October, when bird activity is at its height. (This study only looked at four bird species...)

i.e. No albatross, petrel, prion or cormorant species.

There are 360 species of seabirds with around 30% of those threatened with extinction.

A study looking at 1% of the available species needs to be treated with caution.

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

@KorimakoEcology @tyx @bascule

No, the point is that reducing EVERY OTHER energy system and increasing wind will save hundreds of millions of birds, importantly if we stop drop and roll oil production exploration delivery systems, which kill, observationally, thousands of times more birds.

So talking about wind, not as a demonstrable way to save birds, is not productive, to the goal of saving birds.

Bird lovers, by the billion of bird lives, love wind, thats all I'm saying. Build 1000s.

tyx Mar 4, 2023

@kevinrns @KorimakoEcology @bascule Sorry, I'm not into US energy politics, but in Europe most fossil fuels generation is gas and coal. Not oil. It's bad due to carbon footprint, air pollution, ash dumps, tundra degradation etc. but not killing birds directly on large scale (climate change is an issue, ofc). Skiming through US EIA site gives me an impression, that in the US it looks similar. Did I miss something?

Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀Mar 4, 2023

@tyx @kevinrns @KorimakoEcology one study estimates the number of birds killed by coal at 7.9 million annually. That’s 5 birds per GWh, significantly higher than all other methods of generating electricity

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

tyx Mar 4, 2023

@bascule @kevinrns @KorimakoEcology Thanks for the link, broadly extrapolated, but the scale is large for sure (ofc there are nuances - open-pit mining in Mongolia is different from Poland coal mines). We should phase out coal anyway - coal just kills people. But what can you say about gas? You need reserve generation capacity which you can maneuver rather quick to keep system stable. It's hydro or fossil (as for now). Gas has now fourfold more generation than wind but 1.5-6 times more* bird casualties estimate. And I believe oil (which is included in gas casualties, but has negligible contribution to generation) contributes to bird mortality way more than gas.
It looks to me more like "phase out coal completely ASAP" -> "replace with gas" or "estimate carefully effects of wind generation, build where no critical damage expected" rather than "buid'em everywhere!".
OP report is no way close to The Ultimate Argument in a rather complex topic by academical standards. The news article you are referring to is based on a rather old studies (2009-2013) and there should be more recent reviews. From my POV I see very limited part of the puzzle and it would be great to get the whole picture.

Again - I think we should move toward renewables, just with rational risk assessment/avoidance.

UPD: *oops, wrote "less" instead of "more"

Eric Forste Mar 5, 2023

@kevinrns @KorimakoEcology @bascule @tyx Nuclear has a lot fewer bird (and other) casualties per GWh than burning fossil-carbon gas does.

Kevin Russell Mar 5, 2023

@EricForste @KorimakoEcology @bascule @tyx

Yes but much much more than wind. The conservative US NEWS and World Report looked into it.

(I was once at the Bruce Nuclear plant, and we were doing a short film for them on nuclear safety to animals, when I pointed to the dead seagulls littering the sea grass every three feet in all directions, so we left. But that was an accidental gas release)

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

Janne Mar 4, 2023

@tyx In Sovacool, B 2013 Coal caused 9 million out of the 14 million of the fossile bird deaths. Gas was there too. The particulates, poisoning, destruction of habitat etc.

Hard to imagine Europe is much better on this front, and Coal burning kills people, too.

Nowhere near the numbers of pesticide, window or feral cat killers, but largest cause after them overall.

tyx Mar 4, 2023

@janvenetor About coal - totally agree (see my comment in this thread, haven't seen yours before posting).

Just read Sovacool 2013 not very thoroughly, but enough to get main reasoning and numbers.There is not that much about gas. Oil is another thing, way more harmful, I've seen just enough of spills and open drilling fluid pools during fieldwork.

Andy McKay Mar 4, 2023

@kevinrns @tyx @bascule This fails to understand biodiversity hotspots. As an example Aotearoa New Zealand has ~80 species of seabirds, a third of which are endemic. 90% of these seabirds are threatened with extinction.

Chucking up enormous wind turbines in their flight paths and foraging grounds without having an understanding of impacts is beyond reckless.

It's not even neccessarily increased mortality either, but avoiding large areas they would otherwise utilise.

Ariaflame Mar 4, 2023

@KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @tyx @bascule Which may be why there's usually several years of data gathering before a wind farm is built

tyx Mar 4, 2023

@ariaflame @KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @bascule Yep! And that's why the report we talk about is in no way the final point of discussion.

Ariaflame Mar 4, 2023

@tyx @KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @bascule I am certain that the people building wind farms want to reduce any accidental deaths. And they have been finding ways to reduce any collisions (sound, markings, location - though birds as it has been noted learn to go around reasonably easily). The worst bit is near the tip where the vortices caused can cause issues for some birds and bats. But pollution is *also* bad for them. The earliest ones with lattice masts were bad and got changed.

Kevin Russell Mar 4, 2023

@ariaflame @tyx @KorimakoEcology @bascule

ALL energy systems kill more birds than does wind.

ALL OTHER ENERGY SYSTEMS, kill thousands of times MORE birds than wind, all of them, nuclear, coal, oil all of them. Damns.

Just willy nilly replacing any coal plant, any gas plant, any nuke facility with wind generation will cut 99 to 99.9999% of bird deaths.

Save birds by the millions, build wind generation.
Finally some sense.

Eric Forste Mar 5, 2023

@kevinrns You can’t substantiate the claim that you just made about nuclear.

Kevin Russell Mar 5, 2023

No, you are correct, my experience is without evidence. It can be ignored, even considered untrue. Please do. Its not relevant.

Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe Mar 3, 2023

Not surprised. Birds are pretty darn smart.