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Have the been any advanced in either technology or farm design to minimize bird deaths? While it's seen as somewhat of not a big deal and a necessary evil now,

Have the been any advanced in either technology or farm design to minimize bird deaths? While it's seen as somewhat of not a big deal and a necessary evil now, I imagine that may change as there's more built, there's more built making it more likely to be present in an area with endangered species, dm'd climate change affects increase the amount of engaged species.

BurningFrog 7y ago
Birds will evolve to avoid them. Though I don't know if it takes 10 or 500 years. If not, the ecological niche of eating the dead birds by our wind mills will be filled by some species. Without knowing any numbers, I suspect the actual impact of wind power bird deaths is wholly insignificant, but it makes us feel bad since they're so visible.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  That’s not how evolution works. Just like the whales will evolve to avoid humans and the pangolin evolved to avoid the Chinese market, right?
  - stefs 7y ago
    well, it does seem like some insects are not as susceptible to death by artificial lighting anymore.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    That's also not how evolution works. Some whale species live in excess of 200 years. They've only had a generation or two; evolution doesn't happen that fast. We found a living whale a few years back with a harpoon stuck in it from the 1800s. https://www.foxnews.com/story/nineteenth-century-harpoon-found-in-live-whale https://www.foxnews.com/story/nineteenth-century-harpoon-fou...
    - riffraff 7y ago
      I am no animal rights fundamentalist, but I found that new item so depressing, it sounds like "we found this awesome >130yo whale, which survived a hunt in 1890. Well it didn't survive this one, the sucker."
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Yeah, I also found that to be very sad, especially given how smart whales are. "Not these assholes again!"
  - jayd16 7y ago
    Sure it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution Doesn't mean things can't go extinct but selection can change a population in a few generations.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    One pod of orca has been observed using human-built structures and human activity to assist their hunting. At least one pod has been observed splitting up and engaging in decoy-like activity to protect their juveniles from human capture. The pangolin maybe hasn't figured out Chinese traditional medicine yet. To be fair, I'm not exactly clear on how it works either. Glass curtain walls have already provided competitive advantage to pigeons, parrots, and corvids over sparrows, thrushes, buntings, and warblers. Some crows have figured out how to use window glass to get free meals. Herd that sparrow flock into the windmill, and the murder feasts below the mast. Anthropogenic challenges overwhelmingly favor species with higher levels of individual intelligence. The evolution will be that the dumber birds become endangered or go extinct, while the smarter birds expand their populations.
- fires10 7y ago
  https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds.php https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds.... Bird deaths from windmills are less than other causes.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Wow, windows is by far the biggest bird killer. 2000x wind mills.
Forge36 7y ago
My understanding is more birds are killed by skyscrapers than by windmills. Cats are an even larger threat by a few orders of magnitude.
superpermutat0r 7y ago
I'm pretty sure domestic cats kill more birds than windmills.
- sneakernets 7y ago
  Yes, by several orders of magnitude. Last I checked, Windmills killed 100s of thousands since their inception while domestic cats kill billions each year.
  - jsjohnst 7y ago
    You are high by at least an order of magnitude, if not two. Most estimates I’ve seen put the number of bird deaths from windmills in the thousands across all time.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      I think you're mixing up the stats on eagle deaths (I posted a link elsewhere in this discussion for those, and they are indeed just a couple hundred a year at most) with that of all birds. The number of birds killed by windmills is likely somewhere in the six figures annually. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-... > In the end, using 58 mortality estimates that met their criteria, they came up with an estimate. According to the current literature somewhere between 140,000 and 328,000 birds die each year from collisions with wind turbines.
      - jsjohnst 7y ago
        You are right, it was your link re: eagles and another I found on Google re: endangered birds, not all birds in general. My bad, so thanks!
- hanniabu 7y ago
  And like I said, it's not a concern yet, but like many other things they start as not a huge issue on a small scale and then all of a sudden it's an issue.
Sanzig 7y ago
Birds are not a major concern for wind turbines, despite popular misconceptions [1]. Avian impacts depend a lot on siting, so some wind farms see no bird deaths while others see a few. Generally, it's worse along migratory routes, but even then it pales in comparison to other human impacts on birds. As the linked Wikipedia article states, estimates for bird deaths due to plate glass collisions are in the hundreds of millions per year in the US. By comparison, a Canadian study found an average of less than ten bird deaths per turbine per year in that country. So, it's not zero-impact, and it's definitely something we ought to keep an eye on, but it's not nearly as bad as some people would leave you to believe. To hear the anti-wind lobby explain it, you'd imagine that wind turbines are giant spinning fan blades of death that migratory birds get sucked into and shredded in a cloud of gore. The reality is they have a bit of an impact on birds, but it's not nearly as bad as stuff we do already (like having windows on our buildings). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_p...
- masklinn 7y ago
  > misconceptions I'd wager it's concern trolling or outright lies more often than misconceptions. The people invoking this rarely give a wit about birds, they just find this a convenient stick to hit wind turbines with, either for denial purposes or for NIMBY purposes. Look no further than sverige downthread.
deepakhj 7y ago
Did you get your facts about wind turbines from Trump? /s

BurningFrog 7y ago

Birds will evolve to avoid them. Though I don't know if it takes 10 or 500 years. If not, the ecological niche of eating the dead birds by our wind mills will be filled by some species. Without knowing any numbers, I suspect the actual impact of wind power bird deaths is wholly insignificant, but it makes us feel bad since they're so visible.

ComputerGuru 7y ago
That’s not how evolution works. Just like the whales will evolve to avoid humans and the pangolin evolved to avoid the Chinese market, right?
- stefs 7y ago
  well, it does seem like some insects are not as susceptible to death by artificial lighting anymore.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  That's also not how evolution works. Some whale species live in excess of 200 years. They've only had a generation or two; evolution doesn't happen that fast. We found a living whale a few years back with a harpoon stuck in it from the 1800s. https://www.foxnews.com/story/nineteenth-century-harpoon-found-in-live-whale https://www.foxnews.com/story/nineteenth-century-harpoon-fou...
  - riffraff 7y ago
    I am no animal rights fundamentalist, but I found that new item so depressing, it sounds like "we found this awesome >130yo whale, which survived a hunt in 1890. Well it didn't survive this one, the sucker."
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Yeah, I also found that to be very sad, especially given how smart whales are. "Not these assholes again!"
- jayd16 7y ago
  Sure it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution Doesn't mean things can't go extinct but selection can change a population in a few generations.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  One pod of orca has been observed using human-built structures and human activity to assist their hunting. At least one pod has been observed splitting up and engaging in decoy-like activity to protect their juveniles from human capture. The pangolin maybe hasn't figured out Chinese traditional medicine yet. To be fair, I'm not exactly clear on how it works either. Glass curtain walls have already provided competitive advantage to pigeons, parrots, and corvids over sparrows, thrushes, buntings, and warblers. Some crows have figured out how to use window glass to get free meals. Herd that sparrow flock into the windmill, and the murder feasts below the mast. Anthropogenic challenges overwhelmingly favor species with higher levels of individual intelligence. The evolution will be that the dumber birds become endangered or go extinct, while the smarter birds expand their populations.
fires10 7y ago
https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds.php https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds.... Bird deaths from windmills are less than other causes.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Wow, windows is by far the biggest bird killer. 2000x wind mills.

Forge36 7y ago

My understanding is more birds are killed by skyscrapers than by windmills. Cats are an even larger threat by a few orders of magnitude.

superpermutat0r 7y ago

I'm pretty sure domestic cats kill more birds than windmills.

sneakernets 7y ago
Yes, by several orders of magnitude. Last I checked, Windmills killed 100s of thousands since their inception while domestic cats kill billions each year.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  You are high by at least an order of magnitude, if not two. Most estimates I’ve seen put the number of bird deaths from windmills in the thousands across all time.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    I think you're mixing up the stats on eagle deaths (I posted a link elsewhere in this discussion for those, and they are indeed just a couple hundred a year at most) with that of all birds. The number of birds killed by windmills is likely somewhere in the six figures annually. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-... > In the end, using 58 mortality estimates that met their criteria, they came up with an estimate. According to the current literature somewhere between 140,000 and 328,000 birds die each year from collisions with wind turbines.
    - jsjohnst 7y ago
      You are right, it was your link re: eagles and another I found on Google re: endangered birds, not all birds in general. My bad, so thanks!
hanniabu 7y ago
And like I said, it's not a concern yet, but like many other things they start as not a huge issue on a small scale and then all of a sudden it's an issue.

Sanzig 7y ago

Birds are not a major concern for wind turbines, despite popular misconceptions [1]. Avian impacts depend a lot on siting, so some wind farms see no bird deaths while others see a few. Generally, it's worse along migratory routes, but even then it pales in comparison to other human impacts on birds. As the linked Wikipedia article states, estimates for bird deaths due to plate glass collisions are in the hundreds of millions per year in the US. By comparison, a Canadian study found an average of less than ten bird deaths per turbine per year in that country. So, it's not zero-impact, and it's definitely something we ought to keep an eye on, but it's not nearly as bad as some people would leave you to believe. To hear the anti-wind lobby explain it, you'd imagine that wind turbines are giant spinning fan blades of death that migratory birds get sucked into and shredded in a cloud of gore. The reality is they have a bit of an impact on birds, but it's not nearly as bad as stuff we do already (like having windows on our buildings). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_p...

masklinn 7y ago
> misconceptions I'd wager it's concern trolling or outright lies more often than misconceptions. The people invoking this rarely give a wit about birds, they just find this a convenient stick to hit wind turbines with, either for denial purposes or for NIMBY purposes. Look no further than sverige downthread.

deepakhj 7y ago

Did you get your facts about wind turbines from Trump? /s