Dear Twig: About those wind-power turbines. Do the big spinning blades ever chew up birds?
Sometimes. But in general not too often, especially when compared to other things that people build, use and accidentally kill birds with. (That doesn’t make the deaths less sad. And it doesn’t make the birds feel better.)
According to one study, America’s 15,000 or so wind turbines cause 2.19 bird deaths per turbine per year. That multiplies out to about 33,000 bird deaths each year.
Compare that to this: In a single year in the United States, cars and trucks wipe out up to 80 million birds, while a mind-boggling 100 million to 1 billion birds die by smacking windows.
A lot depends on the turbine design and where it gets put up. Will birds try to perch on it? Will it sit in the path of migrating flocks? Most turbines don’t cause problems. A few do. Scientists want to know why. They want every turbine to keep birds safe.
(Next week: What about bats?)
Twig
P.S. Newer turbine designs often have slower blades and few or no perches — safer for birds!
Note: The 2.19 bird deaths per turbine per year figure comes from a 2001 National Wind Coordinating Committee study, “Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines: A Summary of Existing Studies and Comparisons to Other Sources of Avian Collision Mortality in the United States.” So do the figures for vehicle and window deaths (the latter via a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study). The 33,000 figure comes from “Shades of Green: A Bird’s Eye View of Wind Energy” in BirdWatch Canada. Find details about an upcoming conference, “Toward Wildlife-friendly Wind Power: A Focus on the Great Lakes Basin,” June 27-29 in Toledo, Ohio, at http://www.fws.gov/midwest/greatlakes.
“Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick,” a service of The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences — specifically, of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and Ohio State University Extension, both part of the College — is a weekly column for children about science, nature, farming and the environment. For details and to receive Twig free by mail, e-mail or fax, contact Kurt Knebusch, News and Media Relations, CommTech, OSU/OARDC,1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691, knebusch.1@osu.edu, (330) 263-3776. Available online at extension.osu.edu/~news/archive.php?series=science.
