New York’s Maple Ridge wind energy facility (195 turbines) will slaughter up to 10,000 migratory birds and bats annually. The collision rate reported after the first fall season mortality survey was 34.12 targets per turbine or 6700 collisions, 72% of which were migrating bats (see: http://www.windaction.org/documents/8533). IWA estimates yearly collisions to rise to 10,000 after accounting for spring migration and other year-round migrants. Number of carcasses recovered, as cited in news reports, is not representative of the actual number of birds and bats killed.
This was discovered when the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society in New York acquired (through a Freedom of Information Act) a draft report of the first year study of bird and bat deaths at the wind facility in Lewis County, New York[1].
It should be noted that the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) has, at the urging of CanWEA has ensured that monitoring information will not be shared with the public.
CanWEA: “Accordingly, we would like to request that the Canadian Wildlife Services speak to government experts in the area of Access to Information requests to determine what, if any, of the information currently envisioned to be part of the database could be protected from such requests.”
Canadian Wildlife Services: “Provisions will be made to ensure that proprietary interests are protected for all data submitted. While it is desirable to provide some results for the public, this will be at a very general level, to protect the concerns of individual proponents. Any released data will not be linked to particular projects and will not provide sensitive information without the consent of the proponent”
Why is this being sequestered from the public and scientific community? Why does the protection of the wind industry’s interests override the protection of wildlife and the environment? Based on this policy, the community cannot rely on proponent, CWS or EAAB assurances regarding impacts on bird populations.
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[1] http://www.doas.us
Filed under: Bats, David Suzuki, Liberal Energy Policy, Liberal Party, Migratory Birds, Ministry of Environment, Ontario Government, Ontario Wind Farms, Problems Wind Energy, Renewable energy, Truth about wind, Wind farms, environment, environmental fraud, greenwashing, rural communities, wind turbines | Tagged: amherstburg, birds, Chatham Kent, environment, Essex County, global warming, Kingsville, Lakeshore, LaSalle, Leamington, Ontario, problems wind farms, tecumseh, wind energy, wind industry, wind power, wind turbine, windmills, Windsor
Actually, the first-year study considered only 120 turbines and was conducted over 5 months. Extrapolating to the now 195 turbines and a whole year puts the toll at 16,000 birds and bats annually, as National Wind Watch notes.
[...] Posted on August 17th, 2007. August 13th, 2007 · 1 Comment [...]
One fact we’ve learned in the wind energy debate is that those raising concern are held to a higher standard of proof. Unfortunately, National Wind Watch incorrectly overstated the estimated mortality level for Maple Ridge. To achieve the 16,000 count, they assumed that the same mortality rate would occur in the 7 months of 2006 which were not sampled in the mortality study. This is simply not credible. Rather, the mortality rate during the spring and winter periods would more than likely be much less than half, perhaps as low as 10%. Also, it is well known that bats don’t aggregate in the spring during migration. Since over 70% of the estimated mortality at Maple Ridge was due to bat strikes, we can expect lower kill rates during other times of the year. My comments are not meant to justify what’s happening at Maple Ridge — it’s an outrage — but we do not help the debate by making claims that can easily be refuted.
Without complete data, it seems completely reasonable to extrapolate from the data provided. National Wind Watch doesn’t claim to do anything more than that. Without complete data, there is no reason to assume drastically lower rates for the rest of the year.
One must also remember that the methodology of this study does not follow established standards either for the surveys or for establishing the estimates. Its results are therefore likely much lower than reality. Such rigor as Ms. Linowes imposes is pointless when dealing with figures that are dubious in the first place and then qualified by unverifiable speculation about the rest of year.
With all due respect to the second poster, promoting inflated mortality figures (16,000 birds/bats) is not meaningful when these numbers can so easily be dismissed by those raising concern about industrial scale wind.
Eric, we are aware that you and National Wind Watch, were warned by experts not to publish the higher figures but apparently you opted for shock value over science.
To your second point, there are no established standards for conducting the surveys or for determining carcass estimates. This survey was more comprehensive than others and included daily searches. To argue its wrong and therefore the mortality count is higher amounts to “making it up”.
We all are searching for the truth and in dealing with the wind industry, that is an extremely tough feat.
If the wind industry was forced to come clean, this argument would be moot. As I posted above, they have persuaded environmental agencies from hiding the truth and all we have is incomplete data. In Canada, there could be a mass slaughter and we would never know about it.
I am very ashamed to be an environmentalist at this time in history as the groups who should be fighting this fight are asleep at the wheel or unwilling to enter the debate. It will all come out in the end but, in the meantime, it saddens me to no end seeing the destruction that is taking place.
Alas, we share your frustration and hope Canada and the US wake up soon, before it’s too late. There’s positive movement on this (see: http://www.windaction.org/documents/12257) but we have a way to go.
Thank you for your blog.
–Lisa
Since the figure of 16,000 per year for all 195 turbines is based on the information provided by the study itself (i.e., the study does not warn against extrapolating its 5 months of data to the whole year), it is not so easy to refute.
As the note at National Wind Watch states, “In adjusting the numbers of carcasses found for scavenger removal, search efficiency, and proportion of towers searched, the researchers (agents of Curry & Kerlinger, the industry’s favorite bird surveyors) clearly used a methodology meant to provide the lowest plausible figures. The scientifically established Winkelman and Everaert formulas are not mentioned and would likely have revealed even higher numbers.”
If you’re going to speculate about the seasonal variability, you ought to speculate as well about the results of a more rigorous survey.
But that is all speculation. All we have is the data from the study itself, which provides no reason not to extrapolate it to 16,000 birds and bats per year for all 195 turbines.
Eric, continuing to justifcation of a carcass by attacking the methodology utilized in the report begs the question why you stopped at 16,000 biotargets. Why not 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. This is a tiresome and fruitless banter. As mentioned once before, ‘while Rome burns…”
My apologies to essexcountywind. You have a good blog and I will continue to visit. –Lisa
As I already said, and I apologize to others that it has to be repeated once again: the 16,000 figure comes directly from the report itself, no more, no less — 5 months at 120 turbines studied extrapolated to 12 months at 195 turbines.