Flocks of waders at low tide, Black tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa ) and Oystercatchers (Haematopus ... [+]
A European company has developed bird-detecting radar to halt wind turbines when flocks of certain birds are detected up to four miles distant. It’s EU-only at the moment—with successful testing in Portugal—but could be the sort of technology that finally nails the mallard—sorry, canard—that wind turbines kill birds.
According to studies, wind turbines do kill birds—anywhere from 140,000 to 670,000 birds die in wind farm collisions in the EU each year—but there’s a far more significant avian threat: cats. In the U.K., during a five-month survey period, domestic cats were estimated to have brought home 27 million birds, implying that they killed several times these numbers.
Robin Radar’s Max bird 3D avian radar detects flocks of birds, even surprisingly small flocks, and once paired with AI species-spotting tech from Denmark’s DHI can trigger turbine shutdowns. The system will soon debut at the Dutch offshore wind farm of Ecowende.
An even simpler solution has been successfully trialled by the turbine maker Vattenfall. This involves painting a turbine blade black which helps birds spot there’s danger ahead. In a trial staged in Norway, a black turbine blade led to a 70% reduction in bird strikes. However, there are concerns that making wind turbines more arresting to birds could make them more visually intrusive in sensitive locations.
European starling murmuration / large flock of common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) flying past wind ... [+]
Former President Trump has frequently claimed that wind turbines are bird killers, neglecting to mention that other culprits kill far more. Trump’s antipathy to wind turbines began in 2012 following a successful application by Vattenfall to build a windfarm close to his Scottish golf resort. Trump subsequently lost a court case against the Scottish government over his objection to the windfarm.
“The wind, it kills our birds,” Trump griped to Fox News earlier this year.
“If you want to see a bird cemetery, go under a windmill sometime,” Trump added.
It’s one of several occasions when the former U.S. president has slammed wind farms. In 2019, at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida, Trump said: “I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know.”
He referred to wind turbines as “a bird graveyard” telling the conservative crowd that if they “go under a windmill someday, you’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life.”
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, birds striking wind turbines kill between 140,000 and 500,000 birds annually, while American cats kill up to 4 billion birds each year. Another bird killer is buildings (and their windows), which are estimated to kill some 365 to 988 million birds in the U.S. each year. Additionally, American motorists kill an estimated 214 million birds each year.
“Research shows that wind projects rank near the bottom of the list of human-related bird mortalities, resulting in far fewer annual deaths than those caused by house cats, building collisions, or vehicle impacts,” the U.S. Department of Energy has said.
