Wind power threatens to silence songbirds
Baltimore Sun|Ajax Eastman|February 21, 2009
Punching enormous holes into those contiguous forests for turbines, roads, and transmission lines would destroy the breeding habitat of songbirds as well as the habitats of terrestrial wildlife. ...If we fail to heed the precautionary principle in our haste to combat global warming, we could very well hasten the demise of our beautiful avian choristers, raptors, and insect devouring bats all of whom would have to dodge fast spinning blades of 450 foot tall turbines strung out all along their major migration routes.
Punching enormous holes into those contiguous forests for turbines, roads, and transmission lines would destroy the breeding habitat of songbirds as well as the habitats of terrestrial wildlife. ...If we fail to heed the precautionary principle in our haste to combat global warming, we could very well hasten the demise of our beautiful avian choristers, raptors, and insect devouring bats all of whom would have to dodge fast spinning blades of 450 foot tall turbines strung out all along their major migration routes.
Frank D. Royance's excellent article on "Tracking the songbirds" (2/13/09) was a fascinating account of how far scientists have come in their ability to trace the thousands of miles of migration by birds wearing tiny "geo-locators" attached to their backs.
But, the part of his article that should serve as a cautionary wake up for those rushing to place wind turbines on the unfragmented forests all along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, is the paragraph pointing out "that scientists have known that destruction and fragmentation of forests in North America are among the factors that have contributed to population declines here."
Punching enormous holes into those contiguous forests for turbines, roads, and transmission lines …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]Frank D. Royance's excellent article on "Tracking the songbirds" (2/13/09) was a fascinating account of how far scientists have come in their ability to trace the thousands of miles of migration by birds wearing tiny "geo-locators" attached to their backs.
But, the part of his article that should serve as a cautionary wake up for those rushing to place wind turbines on the unfragmented forests all along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, is the paragraph pointing out "that scientists have known that destruction and fragmentation of forests in North America are among the factors that have contributed to population declines here."
Punching enormous holes into those contiguous forests for turbines, roads, and transmission lines would destroy the breeding habitat of songbirds as well as the habitats of terrestrial wildlife.
Those same songbirds also face loss of wintering habitat in Central and South America where agriculture replaces forests there.
If we fail to heed the precautionary principle in our haste to combat global warming, we could very well hasten the demise of our beautiful avian choristers, raptors, and insect devouring bats all of whom would have to dodge fast spinning blades of 450 foot tall turbines strung out all along their major migration routes.
And why would we spend millions of taxpayer's money to erect these behemoths that fail to produce a reliable capacity of energy, especially in the summer when the demand is highest, and would need a backup source to feed the PJM grid? As for claims that they would reduce our reliance on oil, hardly any electrical energy is produced by oil.
I can only hope that this administration that is committed to relying on science will examine the truth about the efficacy of wind in our eastern mountains, and the environmental consequences trying to harness it.