Are Wind Turbines Huge Bird Killers?

Donald Trump doesn't like wind turbines (that produce clean renewable energy). He wants his buddies in the fossil fuel industry to keep making huge profits. His problem is that the nation needs to move to clean and renewable energy to reduce the carbon dioxide causing global climate change.

Trump has denied global warming (global climate change) is happening, but most people don't believe him. A significant majority of Americans know the truth -- that global warming is happening, and it's caused by human overuse and misuse of fossil fuels.

So he has now come up with another excuse for opposing wind turbines. He is claiming that those wind turbines are a huge killer of birds. The chart above (using data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) shows Trump is again lying.

Wind turbines do kill a few birds, but nowhere near the number killed by other causes -- and wind turbines do not kill enough to put birds in danger of extinction. This is a false argument.

Is Bird Flu Coming Back ?

The first round of avain influenza (H5N1), commonly called the "bird flu", hit a few years ago (in about 2005-2006). It caused quite a scare since about 60% of humans known to have contrated it have died, and since it is carried by birds there is little way to contain it in one place. Fortunately it did not develop a human strain that could easily be transmitted from human to human, and therefore did not develop into a true pandemic (although there have been 331 deaths from 565 confirmed cases since 2003).

But it has not gone away. And in a certain group of countries it remained endemic (Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Egypt, India, and Indonesia). But the incidence of bird flu has been growing in those countries, and has now spread to other countries thought to be free of it (Israel, Palestine, Bulgaria, Rumania, Nepal, and Mongolia). It has reached the point where the World Health Organization is starting to worry that there will be a new (and probably world-wide) outbreak of the disease.

There have been 800 cases reported in 2010-2011 so far, and health experts think there could be a serious outbreak during the Fall and Winter of 2011-2012. And the virus has mutated. The vaccines developed a few years ago do not have an effect on the mutated virus. Another scary thought is that the mutated virus may spread among humans easier this time than it did last time.

This is just the kind of possibly bad news we did not need in this time of recession, unemployment, tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, and drought. All we need is a new pandemic to pile on top of our many other problems.

Dead Birds Are God's Punishment ?

A few days ago I posted about several mass bird deaths that happened recently in Arkansas, Louisiana and Sweden.   While it made good copy for many mass media outlets, it turns out that this is not really a rare occurrence in nature.   Scientists say it happens fairly commonly that there are mass deaths, and it doesn't happen just with birds.   But that explanation is not good enough for some people.

Some want to use these natural occurrences as fodder to push their own agendas.   One of these people is self-proclaimed prophet Cindy Jacobs.   She has decided that god killed the birds because he's mad that the U.S. government repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as a policy for the military (although she doesn't really explain why he would take it out on the birds instead of humans -- I don't think the birds had anything to do with the policy or its repeal).   Here is what she had to say:

According to biblical principles, marriage is between a man and a woman, so we have to say “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding. And you know there are actually some patterns that you can see where a nation will make a decision that is contrary to the principles of God and after that there is some kind of answer that God gives - being the God of creation, the God who created nature - but we don’t always understand what He’s saying.

Well, there’s something interesting we have been watching – let’s talk about this Arkansas pattern and say, could it be a pattern? We’re going to watch and see. But the blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas. Well the Governor of Arkansas’ name is Beebe. And also, there was something put out of Arkansas called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" by a former Governor, this was proposed, Bill Clinton. As so, could there be a connection between this passage [Hosea 4] and now that we’ve had the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, where people now legally in the United States have broken restraints with the Scripture because the Scripture says in Romans 1 that homosexuality is not allowed.

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.

How's that for tortured "thinking"?   And from a "prophet".   I do wonder why god included the Swedish birds though.

There Is No "Aflockalypse"

A few days ago about 3,000 birds were found dead near Beebe, Arkansas.   A few days later the same thing happened in Sweden and in Louisiana.   Since then the internet (and the mainstream media) have been buzzing with stories about the occurrences and what they could possibly mean.   Some creative writers even coined the term "aflockalypse" -- giving the incidents a rather dire tone.

Of course, a lot of people have gone off half-cocked and come up with some ridiculous theories on what is happening.   People have claimed it was the result of secret government experiments, or it was caused by global warming, or even that it is a sure sign we are nearing the "end times" of Earth's existence.   While these are very entertaining scenarios, there is absolutely no evidence any of them are true.

The truth is that we live in a strange world, and sometimes odd things happen -- things that we have no immediate answer for.   But that does not mean there is no scientific answer or that not having an immediate answer protends some dire consequence or is the result of some kind of conspiracy.

Martin Fowlie of Birdlife International said these "die-offs" are natural and usually go unreported.   He believes this one caught the attention of the public because it was a little larger, took place right after the new year came in, and was followed almost immediately by another.

Kristen Schuler, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, agreed saying the incidents were "not that unusual".   She went on to say,   "There is nothing apocalyptic or anything that is necessarily out of the ordinary for what we would see in any given week."   Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the U.N. Environment Program, said,   "These are examples of the surprises that nature can still bring" (although he did call for more research).

Do these incidents seem odd to us laymen?   Absolutely.   Science has still not answered all of nature's questions.   But it is not a portent of the apocalypse.   It is just the natural world showing its mystery and wonderment.   It is interesting though.

A Corporation Doing The Right Thing

If you've read this blog for very long, then you know I don't have a whole lot of respect for most corporations. I believe almost every one of them will abuse their employees, their customers, their communities and their country just to squeeze out another dime of profit (regardless of how much profit they are already showing). That's why I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to see one corporation's response to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the growing oil slick in the Gulf is starting to affect wildlife, especially marine animals and birds. Many of these animals, like turtles and fish, are already dead when they wash up on shore, but a lot of the birds can be saved if someone gets to them in time and are able to wash off the oil from their bodies. If they are not cleaned of the oil, they will also die.

During the earlier Alaskan oil spill, environmentalists and animal lovers discovered that dishwashing liquid worked very well in cleaning the oil off the birds. One brand worked especially well, and has now been used for this purpose for years -- Dawn, made by Proctor & Gamble. For years now, the Cincinnati-based company has been engaged in a partnership with the International Bird Rescue Center and the Marine Mammal Center. They raise money for the organizations and provide them with their excellent product (Dawn).

Proctor & Gamble realized early that there was going to be wildlife problems with the current oil disaster in the Gulf, so they acted. They have already sent 1,000 bottles of Dawn to the affected areas (free of charge), and are preparing another 1,000 bottles for shipment. I expect they will provide even more if it is necessary.

Now I know this is not costing the company a huge amount when you consider their bottom line, and they are probably doing it for the good publicity. That's not important. The important thing is that they are doing it, and it is the right thing to do. If more corporations would do the right thing, we'd live in a much better country.

I don't know about you, but the next bottle of dishwashing liquid I buy will be Dawn.

Another Warning From Mother Nature

Mother Nature has been trying to tell us for many years that we're destroying our environment, but most people haven't been listening. This time the warning is coming from our common backyard birds.

The National Audubon Society has just released a report showing that at least 20 species of common backyard birds have lost more than 50% of their populations in the last 40 years. This involves birds that most of us grew up with such as bobwhites, whippoorills, meadowlarks, sparrows, chickadees, terns, grouse, grackles and hummingbirds.

For example, the meadowlark population has shrunk from 24 million in 1967 to 7 million today. Bobwhites have gone from 31 million to 5.5 million, and whippoorills have gone from 2.8 million to 1.2 million.

One of the main causes of this is the disappearance natural bird habitats. Small family farms are being bought out by corporate farms, resulting in the disappearance of hedgerows and shelterbelts. Land once reserved for conservation is being planted to provide corn for more ethanol. The suburbs are gobbling up more and more land. Global climactic change is destroying habitat.

The Audubon Society is recommending several changes for Congress to consider to slow this decline. They are:

1. Reduce global warming

2. Support wetlands

3. Fund ecosystem restoration

4. Ensure biofuels are eco-friendly

5. Improve conservation programs in next farm bill

I believe the birds make life a little less grim, and I'm not ready to see them disappear. But that's not all. Many other animals will be affected by the loss of these habitats -- including us.

Maybe it's time for us to start listening to Mother Nature's warnings.