Tweets,
Last post on this by me (I promise), just wanted to say that Richard and John's post on the energy and wildlife issue was well stated. Their post helped to sum up what my discussions were on yesterday, that there is no clear cut answers (i.e. good vs. bad) for any potential future renewable power source. They all have their upsides and they all have their black marks. I know we as birders focus mostly on the birds, by as Richard's post stated other areas of wildlife and animals can be greatly affected by such power. Basically any power source that is expansive enough to have to power the nation or the world is going to have potentially major impacts to the environment and to wildlife. What my posts yesterday were getting at is that it does nothing to paint wind as the ugly black sheep but to not examine our full range of options. As John's post states as the world's population keeps growing we are going to need more and more energy unless we can do huge energy conservation and currently that doesn't seem likely. I know one thing we all have in common is wanting to make sure nature and birds are around for a very long time. While politicians may claim to have all of the answers, honestly this is going to be an extremely hard task with many tough choices (including how bad is one for wildlife vs. another). While many emotions may run high, calm rational and hard choices are our best hope. Just because you hear technology A kills wildlife don't immediately turn on it because honestly most if not all of the possibilities are going to kill some wildlife to some degree. The trick is to find one that does the least damage. Other things that kill birds in high numbers are cats (this is not even close to an invitation to start that thread!), cars and most other every day human activities that we do. As John stated, in general humans and wildlife don't really mix all that well, but I feel I'm a steward and should try to minimize our impacts as much as possible. Basically lets rid ourselves of knee-jerk reactions and research and learn as much as we can and try to guide the politicians towards smart choices as they alone really aren't any smarter than we are, they need our educated input.

I appreciate that we can have an informed discussion on here and people took the time to read lengthy posts and respond in a professional manner. I can only assume that is because we all deeply care about this issue, despite sometimes having different viewpoints.

Ok, now back to bird reports. Migration season is heating up, lets go find all of those wonderful species that bring smiles to our faces!

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA