Wind Turbines & Bird Deaths

Dear Greenius,
I’ve heard from four different people lately that wind turbines kill a lot of birds. Though I’ve heard this before from opponents to wind farms, I always thought it was a myth. Is it a myth or an ugly reality?

Signed,
Fond of Feathers

There are certain stories that, like Lindsay Lohan, simply won’t go gently. That wind turbines are cuisinarts for our feathered friends is one of those myths. Or perhaps misconception is more accurate. Turbine haters insist that windmills kill birds. Because…well…because windmills have killed birds. That’s a fact, not up for debate.

The oft-cited example of the Altamont Pass Wind Farms near San Francisco, one of the earliest and largest wind farms with 4,900 small turbines generating wind energy, kills a relatively large number of birds, including some birds that are federally protected.

However, there are a number of problems with Altamont, making it the exception, rather than the rule. For starters, technologists have determined that the small turbines are dangerous to birds and that bigger turbines are more efficient and safer. What’s more, umpteen studies on avian mortality have been conducted, with the results revealing that birds are a whole lot safer around wind turbines than…

Buildings

Buildings kill way more birds annually than wind turbines. Roughly 550-million winged creatures meet their Waterloo in the United States annually. But are people squawking about how we can’t possible build another office tower because it’ll kill birds? Of course not. We’ve accepted them as part of the landscape, though it wouldn’t kill developers to figure out ways to make them less likely to contribute to bird deaths.

Power Lines

They’re second in line as bird-killers, with a figure of 130 million deaths annually.

Cats

Depending on whom you ask, cats are the number one, number two or, according to Al Gore, number three killer of birds.

Cars

Those things we frequently drive to get us to our bird-killing office towers, also murder way more birds than turbines, to the tune of 80-million annually. (They also kill way more people and animals, of course. Not to mention, they pollute the atmosphere while releasing a whole cocktail of chemical contaminants. But turbine haters aren’t proposing a wholesale ban on automobiles. At least not that I’ve heard...)

Pesticides

Though generally invisible, pesticides kill 67-million birds a year.

And wind turbines? Including those pre-2000 ones, before technology created better, safer and more bird-friendly windmills? They kill 28,500 birds each year. Piled up, one on top of another, that would seem like a lot of birds. It is a lot of birds. But compared to all those OTHER bird killers? Not so much.

And of course this analysis doesn’t take into account how many birds die each year because of climate change, air pollution, oil spills…According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “The greatest threat to birds, and all wildlife, continues to be loss and/or degradation of habitat due…”

At the risk of taking the wind out of your sails, all you turbine detractors…the truth is there’s no need to get your feathers in a ruffle over greatly exaggerated bird deaths.

The Greenius is here to answer your questions – big or small. If you have a question keeping you awake at night, please let us help: Send your eco-queries to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Leslie Garrett is a national award-winning journalist, author and editor, based near Toronto, Canada. She is the author of The Virtuous Consumer: Your Essential Shopping Guide for a Better, Kinder, Healthier World and she has also written a dozen children’s books, including a biography of renowned environmentalist David Suzuki and “EarthSmart”, a book for young children on protecting the environment.

Visit: http://www.virtuousconsumer.com/

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