Wind farms are the ‘new apex predators’: Blades kill off 75% of buzzards, hawks and kites that live nearby, study shows
November 5, 2018
By Paul Homewood
From the Mail:
Wind turbines are the world’s new ‘apex predators’, wiping out buzzards, hawks and other carnivorous birds at the top of the food chain, say scientists.
A study of wind farms in India found that predatory bird numbers drop by three quarters in areas around the turbines.
This is having a ‘ripple effect’ across the food chain, with small mammals and reptiles adjusting their behaviour as their natural predators disappear from the skies.
Birds and bats were assumed to be most vulnerable to the rise of the landscape-blotting machines.
But their impact is reverberating across species, experts warned, upsetting nature’s delicate balance.
I doubt whether we’ll hear this from the RSPB.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on WeatherAction News and commented:
Prayer wheels demand sacrifice
And don’t forget about the millions of bats killed nightly around the World. They eat their weight in mosquitoes nightly! More mosquitoes, more disease!
I note they have shown no evidence of killing predator birds. Windmills have been traditionally used as birdscarers in the countryside for centuries. Its probable that the birds are put off by the flashing blades and have moved elsewhere. Still changes the ecosystem but not necessarily by killing. We used to have many buzzards and crows in our area (Chilterns), but after they introduced Red Kites 20yrs ago the aerial battles between the species intensified. The Kites outlasted (they cant outfight) the crows and buzzards that have all moved away and are far fewer now. Interestingly the magpies are not bothered by the kites and their numbers are greatly increasing – they used to be chased off by the crows. Man is the top predator and all his actions bring change, be it building power pylons, bridges, roads or turbines. Of course on the green wing they reintroduce kites to displace the buzzards and now otters to kill off swans and ducks (Signet with Swan egg sauce is a favourite otter food). Change is the only thing that doesnt change, and most change is brought on by natural forces far greater than man.
I suggest you search youtube for the sickening sight of raptors being smashed out the air. They typically circle around the tower in the thermals until the inevitable collision with the blade occurs. There is no doubt that they kill.
The other ludicrous cry from the green lobby is that the small birds and bats killed by windmills are no more than those killed by pet cats. Yet the cat toll is so high it is already having a serious (extinction threat) to some species and more sensible countries are considering roaming pet cat bans.
Bombay Natural History Society report contains a few example cases.
Click to access BUCEROS%2018%281-2%29.pdf
The study says: ‘ In the biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats in India, we find that wind farms reduce the abundance and activity of predatory birds’.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0707-z
Your arm-waving doesn’t change any of that.
They used 400 ft tall windmills with blades moving 100+mph tips to “scare” off birds???
RSPB – Royal Society for the Prevention of BIrds.
Once any of these supposed eco organisations grasps the wind farm’s shilling – they will bend any data to show what they want it too.
In fairness the RSPB has spoken out about the likely effect of large wind farms in the North Sea.
It’s why I stopped being a member of the RSPB.
Same here…..they also think badgers are innocent….
I used to be a Fellow of the RSPB (Qualifications needed – pay a few more pounds per year!!).
To be honest I left the RSPB more than 20 years ago when they had 10 times the membership that they had when I joined, but were still asking me every month for more money. I decided that after 25 years of subs my cash was better placed elsewhere.
Why are these expensive, subsidised, unreliable, bat-bursting, bird-slicing, human health-harming, ugly, ecocrucifixies, still being built?
Political corruption at the highest level.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Strangely, The Graun fails to mention the contribution of turbines in their recent report:
I find 60% to be as believable as the reality of Santa Claus or other mythical characters. 60%? Really??
Yes, J-P and the Beeb seems to have missed this item – despite it appearing in numerous Newspapers.
Strange, that!
You should know by now that there is no news unless it appears in the fact free Guardian. Just turn your minds back to Cheriegate when every news outlet bar two had the story of the flats, the con man, the wacky guru and the Prime Minister’s wife – guess which two?
So they are right, Climate Change is killing off many species. Not actual climate change of course, species have always adapted to that: but the obsessive climate change activists are beyond adaptation.
Could it be that the killing of birds and bats leads to death of predators, the two mentioned being scavengers? I recently almost ran over a buzzard that was having a go at road kill. Fortunately, buzzards are smarter than pheasants. It may even have been a dead pheasant the buzzard had spotted.
I can only give the mortality rate as described by the Audubon Society of America. They claim over 1 million birds in the USA.
When the birds go extinct, what will they blame it on? “Climate change” of course!
I have an old windmill which had a colony of bats for many years, numbers have reduced over the last few years. We have a group of about 8 wind turbines within about a mile of the Mill. It is many months since I saw any bats.It is wrong to speculate as it could be disease.
‘The study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution compared populations of raptors and lizards on a plateau that has had a wind farm for around 20 years to an adjacent valley that has no turbines.’
I am no fan of wind turbines,but I think one has to be careful here, there are other possible causes for the reduced numbers, the paper assumes no difference in population between hilltop and valley before the wind turbines were built. The raptors may also have adapted and avoid the wind turbines.One also has to consider what happens to the distribution of the overall population when one area becomes ‘free’. I would have thought that the tendency would be for the overall distribution to remain the same, but numbers reduce overall. As with a lot of these ‘scientific’ papers that are published and jumped on by lobbies wishing to support their case, they tend to be too narrow in focus and fail to take an holistic approach to the findings.
Are we being as critical of this paper as we would be when it would take the opposite view?
I have no doubt that siting is crucial to the amount of birds/bats killed by wind turbines, and sitings such as this one should never have been allowed in the first place. But it would be wrong to assume that all sites are going to give the same results.
Paul, you don’t seem to have a clue about the scale of industrialization and ruination of the landscape caused by windmills, it isn’t possible for them to be anything except immensely harmful, it isn’t possible to put them where they can do no/less harm.
This isn’t green. It’s insanity.
The original study sets out to use a model to determine the influence of wind turbines on the avian population, with the aim of improving the siting of such ‘wind farms’.
Now I live directly beneath a bird migration route, and our single-storey house is responsible for around 50 bird deaths a year during the autumn migration season which has just finished. If a wind turbine was situated here I can imagine that many hundreds of birds would die as a result. Moved 1km inland this would not be the case. To suggest that siting of turbines has no effect on the number of deaths caused means, in your own words, you have not got a clue. If you were to argue that the death of just one bird per year per turbine is bad enough (as was the case in this report from India), I would agree with you. But whether we like it or not they will continue to be built, and thus at least there is a chance that the damage can be limited. My complaint is that the the report and especially the media article would be trashed by any competent ecologist. I am sure Paul Homewood could easily make the article appear quite worthless and miles away from the truth, should he wish to do so. I like his approach and thus read his postings. If it were just opinion and not backed up by data I would not be interested. How often do we read the negative comments about using computer models and how the media are distorting the facts? I think that is what we have seen in the articles. I just don’t think we should use the same methods to indoctrinate.
FYI
Sent from my phone 07957 365666. Ian
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Break out the whitewash to paint over this one – as usual for any downside to renewables.
Where are the screaming environmentalists when these facts are brought to light? Naval gazing? This should be a window onto the whole group and their “movement.”
“Naval gazing?”
I think you mean “navel gazing.”
There is an old joke:
Sailor: “I’m a naval gunner!”
Naive girl: “Gosh! How do you hit such a small target?”
The RSPB famously declared that only ONE bird had been killed, but then, of course, they themselves have leased off land for turbines. Nothing like some vested CASH interest to create screaming blatant hypocrisy
You’ll note if you read the study that raptor numbers ‘reduce’ by 75%. That’s not the same as them. Being killed – just showing avoidance behaviour and not predating in areas where turbines are.
That’s jolly clever of them!
There’s a sanctuary for red kites in North Wales. Lovely area, loads of kites there, worth seeing etc etc. I was surprised by the proximity of several turbines – you can even see one on their website here:
http://www.naturalresources.wales/bwlchnantyrarian?lang=en
Not sure what that proves, but you have to wonder why they built them there. Maybe the kites just breed fast!
Reblogged this on Science is distorted by progressive philosophy.