<
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/01/10/wind-turbines-are-friendlier-to-birds-than-oil-and-gas-drilling>
"BIRDERS GET nervous when they see landscapes covered in wind turbines. When
the wind gets going, their blades can spin at well over 200km per hour. It is
easy to imagine careless birds getting chopped to bits. Campaigners often point
to the possibility when opposing the building of new wind farms.
No one doubts that wind turbines do indeed kill at least some birds. But a new
analysis of American data, published in
Environmental Science & Technology,
suggests the numbers are negligible, and have little impact on bird
populations.
Wind power has expanded dramatically in America over the past 20 years, from
2.6 gigawatts of installed capacity on land in 2000 to 122 gigawatts in 2020.
Many studies have analysed the effects in specific locations or on specific
bird species. But few have looked at the effects on wildlife at the population
level. Enter Erik Katovich, an economist at the University of Geneva. Dr
Katovich made use of the Christmas Bird Count, a citizen-science project run by
the National Audubon Society, an American non-profit outfit. Volunteers count
birds they spot over Christmas, and the society compiles the numbers. Its
records stretch back over a century.
Dr Katovich assumed, reasonably, that if wind turbines harmed bird populations,
then the numbers seen in the Christmas Bird Count would drop in places where
new turbines had been built. He combined bird population and species maps with
the locations and construction dates of all wind turbines in the United States,
with the exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii, between 2000 and 2020. He found that
building turbines had no discernible effect on bird populations. That
reassuring finding held even when he looked specifically at large birds like
hawks, vultures and eagles that many people believe are particularly vulnerable
to being struck.
But Dr Katovich did not confine his analysis to wind power alone. He also
examined oil-and-gas extraction. Like wind power, this has boomed in America
over the past couple of decades, with the rise of shale gas produced by
hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of rocks. Production rose from 37m cubic
metres in 2007 to 740m cubic metres in 2020.
Comparing bird populations to the locations of new gas wells revealed an
average 15% drop in bird numbers when new wells were drilled, probably due to a
combination of noise, air pollution and the disturbance of rivers and ponds
that many birds rely upon. When drilling happened in places designated by the
National Audubon Society as “important bird areas”, bird numbers instead
dropped by 25%. Such places are typically migration hubs, feeding grounds or
breeding locations."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
