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 threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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
Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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
Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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
Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚
@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
Mar 5, 2023 at 5:32pmWeb
Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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.

Show threadnemo 🐦 🟦 🐳 🃏 🥚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