New study shows wind turbines don't harm birds
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 06.16.05
For those who thought they could survive the Long Emergency by standing under windmills and catching dinner, we have bad news. A recent Danish study shows that migrating birds learn quickly to avoid routes that pass through windfarms- less than one percent of the birds get close enough to risk a collision. The birds gave the turbines an even wider berth at night, sticking more closely to the middle of the corridors between turbines. Many avoided the wind farms altogether and found alternate routes. ::New Scientist
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Please, don't ever use the c-------- word near wind turbines. You *will* get quoted out of context by an anti-wind group sooner or later. Best to let the phrase die a natural death.
thanks for the tip, I did not know it was a cliche. it is corrected.
The last I had heard, bats more than birds were the concern, apparently the turbines disrupt thier echolocation somehow, EFT's or the inability for thier sonar function to gauge the speed of the turbines, its unclear what causes it but, it has environmentalists concerned. Especially since as we all know bats can eat thier weight in mosquitos nightly and you gotta love that.
Beth
Rule of thumb, according to what I've heard, is about one bird strike per windmill per year as opposed to at least ten times that bird casualty rate per cat (and maybe one hundred time that rate for feral cats).
Thus the answer is exterminate all cats and build more windmills.
There is,however, a legitimate subtopic of concern relative to stray voltage. Big wind farms require a network of wires to collect the produced electricity, thus bathing an entire area in Gaussian fields and stray voltage when climatic conditions are right. Orientation by migratory birds, production by milking cows, and possibly humans could be affected. It's really the same debate associated with transmission lines but focused on a no-escape scenario. Dairy farmers in particular are up in arms about it.
> [bats killed by wind turbines]
bats amazingly are able to fly through electric fans that are spinning at hundreds of rpm. large wind turbines don't spin nearly that fast. where's the data backing up the bat death claim? -mt