“[Hannah] Ritchie ends with suggestions for better results for wind’s avian mortality problem, including ‘Turn off wind turbines at very low speeds when bats are around … Don’t put wind farms in high-risk areas for birds and bats … Paint the turbines Black … Play alert noises to bats and birds to deter them.’ But … these things limit wind siting, increase costs, and/or annoy local neighbors.”
A social media post by Hannah Ritchie (sustainability researcher, University of Oxford) on industrial wind power is worth revisiting. She works within the climate alarm/forced energy transformation narrative (“Bird species are under threat from climate change”) but considers the question:
It would be worrying, then, if a move to low-carbon energy increased pressures on bird populations. That’s a common concern as countries move to wind power.
After noting that “cats, buildings, and cars kill far more birds than wind power,” and windows kill more birds than wind turbines, she gets to the real question:
Wind power is a threat to particular types of birds, particularly birds of prey
It’s not just the total amount of birds that are killed that matters, but what types. If a particular species of bird is disproportionately affected it could have real impacts on population dynamics and risk of extinction.
A study by Chris Thaxter and colleagues (2017) looked at the collision rates of different bird species from a large literature review. The documented rates of collisions for different groups are shown in the chart below.
If you’re like me, you will have no idea what most of these groups actually mean. So I’ve translated a few of the most impacted orders:
In short, birds of prey such as eagles, raptors, and hawks; shorebirds; and storklike orders are at much higher risk of collisions than other families, such as songbirds. This disproportionate risk has been found across many other studies.
These species can be at a higher risk for several reasons. First, they will often use ridgetops to get lift from the wind. Incidentally, this is also a good spot for wind turbines. Second, they are often migratory birds; if wind farms are in their migratory route this puts them at higher risk. More indirect impacts of wind farms – which might not be reflected in death statistics – is their effect on the disruption of migratory patterns.
While the total number of birds killed by turbines is low compared to other hazards, the threat to particular species is more concerning. We need better mapping of key hotspots for these species so that wind farms can be deployed in suitable locations. More on how we can reduce these deaths later.
Ritchie ends with suggestions for better results for wind’s avian mortality problem, including:
But … these things limit wind siting, increase costs, and/or annoy local neighbors. And she failed to note something else: the avian mortality problem of industrial wind turbines is entirely incremental. The very structures are government-enabled and not necessary for a healthy grid—quite the opposite, in fact.
Still, it is good to see the climate crowd dealing with this issue.
Good observations. It’s more than incremental. The habitat fragmentation, displacement, is I would say, exponential. We should also count insects ( massive destruction), bat demolition, butterflies. Impacts on migration are not incremental. Immediate, and with large ranging complex impacts. We will never know the real numbers. It’s the saddest expose of eco corporate greed ever. Then tuck in solar.