
Almost 7 million birds perish at communication towers in North America each year - llambda
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120425193056.htm
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vannevar
If only they could all be grackles.

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sneak
sage goes in every field.

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joshuahedlund
The methodologies described in the article seem sound to layperson like me,
but do keep the last paragraph in mind:

> The study was funded in part by The Urban Wildlands Group, Environment
> Canada, the American Bird Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife.

I wonder, for instance, how many total birds migrate each year and if we think
communication towers are depleting those numbers. Don't get me wrong, I
support common sense solutions to reducing needless bird deaths, but I also
like to have context to know how much to worry about things.

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waterlesscloud
Looking at the numbers they offer, it seems like it's about 1 bird per tower
every 4 days.

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ilkandi
It seems to be an easy fix to reduce an unnecessary environmental impact, save
animal lives, save money on carcass cleanup crews and wire damage, and
increase public goodwill. Is there a FAA reason for having steady lights, is
it bureacratic inertia, or are the rules accommodating the owners of older
towers, or the manufacturers of steady lights? I think if I were a pilot a
flashing light would catch my attention faster than a steady one (cf, blinking
vehicle turn signals).

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Nick_C
According to this from the FAA, they commonly approve flashing lights:

<http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/policy/dtv/lighting.html>

And this advisory (PDF, admittedly from the Alaskan office, but I doubt there
is much variance), provides for flashing lights on towers:

[http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato...](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/systemops/fs/alaskan/towers/obstruction/media/AC70_7460_1K.pdf)

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pauldix
better coverage in the NYT:
[http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/a-lethal-beacon-
fo...](http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/a-lethal-beacon-for-
migrating-birds/)

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dmckeon
Takeaway:

"... the tallest 2 percent of the towers accounted for 71 percent of the
mortalities."

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tocomment
I wonder at what point natural selection will start taking effect?

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zecho
Seeing as how moths still fly into flames, it's probably going to be awhile.

Anyway, that's a shocking number, but I know it happens. I used to work at a
TV station in college and once came out to my car to find a goose head on the
hood. The body was a few feet away. It apparently had decapitated itself
flying into the cables. My coworkers say it happens quite often during the
migrations. They fly into the cables at night.

It was a bit disturbing, but made for a good meal!

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SquareWheel
Whoa, that last line just came out of nowhere.

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_delirium
It's a bit odd that we hear a lot more about the ~300k birds killed annually
by windmills than 7 million killed by communication towers (I didn't even know
about this one). I would guess because windmills are a hotter political issue.

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aqme28
And that pales in comparison to the number of birds killed by glass. Estimates
of 100 million to _1 billion_ birds annually _in the US alone._ Every time I
hear bird-deaths as an argument against windmills I want to scream until I
die.

[1][http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4134773/ns/us_news-
environment/t...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4134773/ns/us_news-
environment/t/plate-glass-blamed-billion-bird-deaths-year/#.T5vmUsRYub0)

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jules
Going further, the number of birds killed for human consumption is even
greater: 8.9 billion chickens in the US per year.

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seabee
The difference is farmed poultry isn't an _environmental_ concern (well, the
waste they produce is, but not the birds themselves).

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sneak
Neither are a few million birds too dumb to avoid guy-wires.

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kinleyd
That is a tragically large number, and the solution seems easy enough to
implement. Activism is the likely missing ingredient. Something needs to be
done.

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tomjen3
It is birds. Not humans. More humans properly perish from lack of
communication.

Screw the birds. Humans are better.

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lincolnq
Fortunately we don't have to choose! We can make the red lights more blinky,
apparently.

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nookiemonster
7 million dead birds seems like it would be easy to video/photograph. Choosing
to forego documentation that supports these claims has to be intentional.

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ilkandi
Please take some time to research your inner techniques of logic, and how you
assume outcomes and motives (in general). You appear (to me) prone to jumping
to definite conclusions based on faulty logic and/or incomplete data. Not an
attack, just a comment.

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tomjen3
I can't fault him. Incomplete data is what we have in the real world and while
he has shown no evidence in this story a lot of what we read in the media is
planted to either pander to their readers or from public relation firms.

I don't think it is a bad habit to assume that this has been planted for some
reason. If not, 7 million birds should be enough that you can see them drop in
droves. 7 million is a very, very high number.

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Anechoic
As noted above, 7 million birds per year, spread across 84,000 towers is about
1 bird per tower every four days. That alone isn't exactly noticeable, and
given that most towers are located in out-of-the-way areas, that number of
bird deaths could very easily escape notice by most people.

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tomjen3
I assumed there were a lot fewer towers.

Either way, I still wonder why this story was selected and not some other
story (there is only so many stories a news paper can write) and because I
have become cynical I assume that it was either a PR agency or pandering. I
have not heard any evidence for anything else.

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westicle
I'm going to assume kangaroos have psychokinetic powers and are secretly
plotting to take over the world.

I have not heard any evidence for anything else.

Surely it is up to you to disprove my theory if you don't think it is correct.

