Nothing's free.? My co-authors and I? warned about the problem of bird kills from wind farms 31 years ago in DOE's (then ERDA) first comprehensive solar report: Solar Energy In America's Future.? There is some hope that the new larger turbines will be more easily avoidable by birds.? The Klickitat turbines appear to be small enough to be relatively invisible.? Bottomline we really don't know.? Location really matters.? The Altamont CA turbines are substantial killers of raptors, especially Golden Eagles.? The many thousands of miles of new transmission lines necessary for really large scale use of wind energy may be even more dangerous than the turbines themselves.?? From an environmental perspective, energy conservation beats all energy supply options.

RCC

Richard Carlson

Full-time Birder, Biker and Rotarian

Part-time Economist

Tucson, AZ, Lake Tahoe, CA, & Kirkland, WA

rccarl at pacbell.net

Tucson 520-760-4935

Tahoe 530-581-0624

Kirkland 425-828-3819

Cell 650-280-2965

--- On Sun, 9/13/09, Scott Downes <downess at charter.net> wrote:

From: Scott Downes <downess at charter.net>
Subject: [Tweeters] re: Wind Power
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Date: Sunday, September 13, 2009, 10:34 PM






Steve,
I don't want to start a long conversation on this
but do want to correct several items.
?
1. Yes an Acorn Woodpecker was reported as a
fatality in Klickitat County, just west of Rock Creek (well away from their
known haunts). While the?ID is likely correct, the memo I have on it gives
no indication of how it was identified, so seems a little premature to conclude
so quickly "its the facts". I hardly think we'd call a Blackburnian warbler with
no details reported "the facts".
?
2. Several Ferruginous hawks have NOT been killed
in Klickitat County and Benton County to?my knowledge (and I'm pretty up to
date on the details as I work with wildlife and wind just about every day). To
date there have been two known fatalities of FEHA in WA, one was at Big Horn
(near?Bickleton)?in Klickitat County (I was the biologist who
identified that one and processed) and one?at Stateline several years
ago-2003 to be exact?(I was the biologist who found and processed that
one). In?Oregon there have been 2 to date that have been reported in
monitoring reports. Unless you know of one that I haven't heard of that would
make 0 for Benton and 1 for Klickitat.
?
3. Yes, a Golden Eagle was found as a fatality at
the same project in Klickitat County where the Acorn Woodpecker was found.
Eagles have long been known to be susceptible to turbines as their first alarms
at Altamont in CA were due to the amount of Golden Eagles being killed. This was
the first eagle of any species to date found in the NW. I say found because
typically our statistical estimates are at only about 15-30% of all raptor
fatalities are actually found by searches (long-winded reason as to why, if
anyone is interested they can contact off-list).?it is very likely that
other FEHA and GOEA have been killed and not found (its a tremendous amount of
work to search for fatalities).
?
4. Finally woodpeckers as fatalities aren't new.
Northern flickers have been a regular fatality and Downy Woodpecker, Lewis'
Woodpecker have shown up as fatalities before. So have Virginia Rail and about
80 some other species. I'm not sure why we would be surprised, birds fly away
from their protected areas and any bird flying 40-80 meters above the ground
(typical range of most turbine blades being installed) are at risk. Some species
are far more at risk than others but Yes,?pretty much any species that
flies through the airspace is at risk. This includes passerines, woodpeckers,
waterfowl, gamebirds (chukar and partridge have been often found, though these
are typically running into the towers), raptors etc.. etc.. We say sedentary for
Acorn, yet a bird showed up in Yakima County, it had to get there
somehow...
The typical composition is about 35-40% of
fatalities at a project is Horned Lark and dozens of other species make up the
other 60% with gamebirds, kinglets (both species), American kestrel among the
more common species found. ??
?
So Steve to answer your last line, yes almost any
bird is vulnerable. When I'm doing point counts for a project, any bird recorded
on the project has some risk, even if it was seen perched, it will fly at some
point. I honestly have no opinion on how good or bad Wind is relative to other
aspects of power sources?and we all have different viewpoints and probably
for the sake of tweets should discuss off-line, but the thing that we all need
is the good information. I recently saw a big newspaper story in the Columbian
on the topic any MANY inaccuracies were printed in there. The only thing I have
an opinion on is that everyone should be factually informed and then they can
voice (and then should) their opinion as to what matters to them. This is why I
wrote this is as?I happen to be blessed (or cursed depending on the point
of view) to be privy to all of these details that sometimes are hard for people
to get access to, so trying to give the most factual info I can.
?
Sorry that was so long. My 200
cents...
?
Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA
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