Wind turbines either kill or scare away three quarters of buzzards, hawks and kites at three sites in India. That makes them the new “top predator” in the ecosystem according to new research. Perhaps not the niche that Greens were expecting wind farms to occupy.
It’s not all bad news though, fan-throated lizards are pretty happy about not being dinner.
Lizards vote for wind.
Wind farms are the ‘new apex predators’: Blades kill off 75% of buzzards, hawks and kites that live nearby, study shows
Harry Pettit for Daily Mail Online
- Predatory bird numbers are four times higher in areas away from wind turbines
- This is having a devastating ‘ripple effect’ across the food chain
- It means numbers of certain small animals are growing unchecked
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.
Study coauthor Professor Maria Thaker said:
‘Every time a top predator is removed or added, unexpected effects trickle through the ecosystem. What is actually happening here is the wind-turbines are akin to adding a top predator to the ecosystem.’
From the abstract:
The cascading effects of wind turbines on lizards include changes in behaviour, physiology and morphology that reflect a combination of predator release and density-dependent competition. By adding an effective trophic level to the top of food webs, we find that wind farms have emerging impacts that are greatly underestimated. There is thus a strong need for an ecosystem-wide view when aligning green-energy goals with environment protection.
300,000 wind turbines too late.
REFERENCE
Thaker et al (2018) Wind farms have cascading impacts on ecosystems across trophic levels, Nature Ecology and Evolution
Image adapted from a photo by GregMontani
For some reason, it seems raptors and similar birds seem to be drawn to wind generators it would seem. The numbers that are killed by these machines seem to be out of proportion. We have all seen the video of the circling raptor that eventually gets taken down by a blade, but why was it circling closer and closer? Is the ultra low frequencies a “lure” to them? There has to be some reason outside of a death wish.
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https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/01/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/
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The rat plagues are caused by the wind choppers killing of the hawks and kites, that’s so obvious cause and effect!!
STOP ALL BIRD CHOPPERS NOW!!
STOP ALL BIRD CHOPPERS NOW!!
STOP ALL BIRD CHOPPERS NOW!!
STOP ALL BIRD CHOPPERS NOW!!
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Why aren’t the animal rights activists and greenies out there protesting?
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Because THEY are part of the problem !!!
Sucked in to the AGW scam, and nothing else that used to matter, matters any more.
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Why aren’t they out there protesting? Far too cold for that today, Robber, they’re all inside trying to keep warm. From your Bureau of Muntedology itself: 1.2˚C BELOW freezing at Salmon Gums, WA this morning; 1.5˚C BELOW freezing in Tasmania, snowing with a minus 18˚C wind chill howling across Mt Mawson and kunyani; then by tomorrow, the snow blizzard arrives in the South Island with sub-zero temps (down to minus 12˚C wind chill) gale force winds and 30-50 cm snow forecast for the next few days. As usual, our MetService ignores their own prognostication of cold and snow by screaming “28˚C scorcher for NZ Wednesday”. Surely they’re aware of what orographic winds are capable of doing?
Has next year’s winter arrived early, or is it this year’s winter still hangin’ around and refusing to adopt a progressive ‘moving forward’ attitude? Then again, it is the 19th day without a sunspot and the jet streams have gone loopy…
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Anything over 20C is a heatwave in NZ isnt it?
Cold dont exist, snow has been eliminated..
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NZ doesn’t get heatwaves … it’s never hot enough for long enough.
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Because their income replies on keeping the renewable industry going.
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I think one reason for this is that raptors are looking down at the ground for a meal. Also,I don’t think anyone is counting crows(they may be too smart for this)
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So sick of the green double standards when it comes to act on actual environmentalism, what the article fails to show is the actual carnage these expensive asshat engineered turdbines really do.
Save the eagles international. http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/ The evidence is there the courage to face it is not.
The usual green rebuttal is cars, cats ect kill more birds than turbines if so the idea that they kill is admitted and an increased mortality factor is justifiably introduced, I’d be interested to see how many birds coal power stations kill?
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Call them out on the double standards.
They are like delinquent teenagers, that need a bit of tough love to sort them out and get their heads straight. Unless we verbally get in their faces and expose the lies, nothing will change and we will continually, by default, excuse their outright lies….
My 2 cents. 🙂
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The rebuttal to their cat excuse is to inform them that you have already moved to a personal cat free future in order to protect the environment and refuse to take them seriously unless they provide proof they are doing the same.
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Hi Yonnie, me old china!
I’m a bit confused mate: can you tell me the difference between an eagle that’s been clobbered by a wind turbine and:
A pelican that died in an oil spill,
Or a kangaroo wiped out by a coal train,
Or the birds which were fried when an oil refinery ignited
Or a whale run down and killed by an oil tanker
Or all the creatures which lost their home to an open cut coal mine
Or all the fish which died after the channel was dredged for a coal terminal
Or all the marine animals who perished after an oil tanker ran aground
Or all those birds incinerated in one of those gas flares.
Cheers
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I see the logic here. What you do is bad, so, so what if what I do is bad? Is that about it? So you are offsetting my bad with your bad. Cool. Makes all the sense in the world. Do you really realize how stupid your argument really is?
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Stop the Bird Choppers.
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http://joannenova.com.au/2018/11/wind-turbines-are-new-top-predator-in-the-ecosystem/#comment-2067215
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Birds of prey should have flying rights,
To fly at their own chosen heights,
And not forced to evade,
Every wind-turbine blade,
Which slaughter hawks, buzzards and kites.
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Let me be the first (today) to say congrats for that one, Ruairi!
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The idea that in a modern world of reliable and sustainable nuclear power and HELE coal fired power plants we should instead use thousands of wind turbines to power a modern society smacks of utter stupidity of the extreme kind. Then there is the cost difference. It’s time Morrison came out and prosecuted the case more strongly for coal and nuclear and against all forms of renewables. Not one cent more should be spent on renewables and a whole lot more spent on at least coal to help our nation sustain a viable and economic future, just as so many other nations are already doing. The LNP has one last chance to avoid our nation being smashed by the left if ALP+Greens win. He better get cracking soon and stop playing hide and seek.
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Actually, you use thousands of wind turbines to make attempting to run a modern society more problematic and expensive. You can’t run a modern society with renewable energy. You can only destroy one.
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PeterS, the point is you can’t run a modern society on windmills, so the solution is – get rid of the modern society. Simple. Loin cloths and clubs should be good enough.
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The top raptors are wiped out by windfarms, and the same idiots don’t see the connection to increases in vermin rodent population.
Can someone educate the alarmists that their actions have consequences.
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More interested in banning single use plastic bags to save gay whales….they really are hypocrites
!
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No…they are just like spoilt children.
They have a mental age of about 5, complete with tantrums and always being told they are “special”, when in fact , like children, they need constant correction to keep things real.
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Like Fran Kelly this morning spending more time moaning and interviewing RSPCA about the horse that had to be put down than the winner and the benefits of the Melbourne Cup!
Will Aunty flog this as Vic Racings ‘Khashoggi’??
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And just to back Aunty up the celebrities think it’s a great idea!
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/australians-boycott-the-race-that-stops-the-nation/ar-BBPo5qe?ocid=ientp
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Perhaps the raptors aren’t getting any sleep?
The World Health Organisation this month recognised that living near a wind farm producing excessive noise is a health risk and it released new guidelines for noise levels, insisting that exposure to wind turbines shouldn’t exceed 45 decibels during daytime.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/11/01/17/46/wind-turbine-energy-health-community-anger?ocid=Social-9NewsB
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Mark M
The problem is that what needs to be measured is NOT strictly within the hearing range. The very low frequencies involved resonate the bodies cavities, like the skull, eye sockets, the diaphragm, the spinal cord, etc. And it is this (IMO) which causes the problems.
As this paper (HERE) on noise reduction/mitigation of German trains explains —
Unfortunately when sound, or acoustic noise is measured often an ‘A weighted filter is used. Look at the low frequency end of this filter and you’ll cut out the low frequencies.
Look HERE for ‘A’, ‘C’, and ‘Z’ filters.
Note no acoustic measurement filter is designed to measure very low frequencies in the 0.5 (or below) to 20 Hz region.
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That’s it, the carefully hidden Scandal of VLF pulsing.
“Noise” has been used as a smokescreen despite the fact that Infrasound has been known of for Twenty Years.
This cover-up needs exposing and those responsible made to pay compensation out of their own pockets, not from the public purse.
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“This cover-up needs exposing and those responsible made to pay compensation out of their own pockets, not from the public purse.”
Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira,an expert on harm from LFN and infrasound radiation from turbines, has stated that knowing what she knows, she would not live within 20 km from wind turbines.
Why have rural residents had their homes surrounded by turbines? Why are these turbines still running?
Those who are responsible for these dangerous siting decisions need to receive ‘letters of liability’.
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re: ‘letters of liability’ -a social justice movement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtIYFCjUTSo
Who will be held liable for the death of raptors from these turbines?
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Ah, the ecosystem. Remember getting rid of cattle from the high country because they damaged the environment. Brumbies on the other hand are “part of the heritage of the high country, so they are sacred. Screams about feral deer numbers damaging the environment kill, kill, remove. Feral brumbies in the Bahmah forest are starving due to drought. Save save at any cost. The hypocricy is writ large.
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And the weeds continue to prosper and add to the fuel for wild fires in future.
Native grasslands no longer managed as they were for thousands of years before white colonisation in 1788, and afterwards by cattlemen who took advantage of the higher country grasslands.
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Yep this green hypocrisy is reaching new heights.What a ridiculous arguement-that other things like cars and cats kill more birds than these hideous landscape blighting monstrosities(which are really reincarnations of old technology from the 19th century).So now its all right to destroy bats and raptors in a “new way” . Its now time
to start also ignoring the other side of renewable wind energies dirty little secrets like ,the mining and refining of neodymium in Bautou Mongolia.Here tailing lakes of acid
and radioactive material have utterly destroyed farmlands and caused disease among the locals.Meanwhile around the world these Wind factories have brought sleeplessness,tinnitus(potential cardiovascular disease according to the latest report from the WHO).I would go one step further than describing this as green hypocrisy
its really more like green form of Physcopathy where not only are humans in the sights of these zealots but also animals.Yes what a mentality these people must have
disastrous “unintended consequences” that are foist on other living creatures and are acceptable as some form of collateral damage -leaving them still feeling some
how virtuous.
Cheers Mike Reed
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I really like this guy for his educational astronomy and physics videos… here is his last one on the earths atmosphere… I hope he doesn’t lose his job!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3qTVLmMLfkI
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O/T – Anyone know which is the best unbiased US election web site to monitor voting please?
If the USA swings politically to the Left, Australia will follow suit. Anyone conservative ( especially Christians ) will be marked for eventual “re-education”….
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Chiefio is hosting a comments page. Usually has good reports cited.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/24-hours-to-decisions-known/
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Info: He currently lives in California. His name is E. M. Smith.
Has worked in Florida. Computer guy. Lots of interests.
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Thanks John 🙂
Whats your gut feel for how it will go?
I got the impression that the fact that Hellary still hasnt been put in prison, plus the out of control treatment of Judge Kavvanagh plus the obviously illegal planned land invasion of the USA is going to backfire badly on the Left.
I think the election is only half the story. The Left are clearly deranged and evil anarchists, I suspect what happens after the election when they lose will be as important as the election itself…..
Its interesting to see the mask come off the Democrats to see their true Communist identity revealed.
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This is the sort of study that needs replicated in other places and over a few years.
The results seem quite damning and thus warrant the price of more research.
Many previous reports appear anecdotal — it is not that they are not true, it is they just haven’t been properly done.
Or the money could be used to knock all the many (300,000 ?) of them down and we could get on with building reliable power sources. I’d vote for that!
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WHO says they are injurious to health.
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/11/06/who-says-wind-turbines-a-health-hazard-the-world-health-organization-thats-who/
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The Dirtiest Secret of Them All.
Yes;
wind turbines are noisey, high maintenance, uneconomic, money gulping BirdChoppers. As Michael points out at #9, they are also causing massive environmental damage.
In short, they are doing everything in Contradiction to their stated Raison d’Etre.
This is all in public view to some extent but the Ugliest Dirtiest Secret has only just been made Public by the WHO, and this only because some very brave researcher in Europe exposed it in a “scientific paper”.
VLF pulsing, aka Infrasound has been a known, serious health issue for at least 20 years.
Just imagine the damage done to a human body when the automatic control of the heart_lung is overridden by the VLF Pulsing from a Wind Turbine.
Just imagine, all of your pressure sensitive body surfaces, skin, aural system and internal lung surface being pressured up and released at roughly the same frequency as your heart beat.
This pulsing is fed back to the automatic control system in the brain and causes confusion, with resultant Nausea and Heart Damage.
This has been known for Twenty 20 years.
Who caused this important knowledge to be Hidden??
Perhaps the UNIPCCCC?
Make No Mistake, the Renewables Industry appears to be a product of altruism.
It’s ONLY about One Thing.
Serious Money.
How many Human Lives have been Devastated by Infrasound?
KK
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Yep, serious money which would not be available without the RET. Let’s kill the RET.
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WHAT I find ever so slightly concerning is the way Warms like to accuse Realists of using the same tactics as the tobacco industry to cover up the risk to the planet, while at the same time effectively using the same tactics as the tobacco industry to cover up health risk to the population.
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Slightly?
This is a Biggy.
Deep Sixed but not deep enough and I hope it is fully exposed.
Windturbine pulsing is a Danger to Human health.
Just imagine being seriously seasick for months on end until your bodily structure finally fails.
Motive > Money.
Mechanism > Government Regulation to save Planet.
Victims > Rural Dwellers in the way.
Morality in Government > Flushed down the plughole in the corner.
Aided and Abetted by > Mainstream media.
KK
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Meanwhile our minister for getting electricity prices down Angus Taylor reports in today’s Australian that more renewables are coming.
“The growing market power of energy companies combined with the unprecedented investment in intermittent solar and wind generation without storage threatens the affordability, reliability and security of our National Electricity Market”.
But what is he proposing? Even more redundant investments. “We are working towards a shortlist of electricity generation investment projects by early next year that deliver when customers need it (likely to include coal, gas and hydro), balancing the unprecedented investments in solar and wind. These new projects will drive increased competition and supply to enhance affordability and reliability”. Stop the policies that are driving those investments in unreliables! Give every generator the obligation to provide power 24×7 on demand at a fixed price each month, not bid to supply the next 5 or 30 minutes.
One glimmer of hope: “We are committed to obligations for retailers to ensure reliability of supply by mid-next year. Requiring investment years ahead to meet expected demand, even when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing, is standard in most developed countries”.
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I am extremely disappointed with the confused verbalism that covers the reality about electricity supply reliability, cross subsidies and Cost.
KK
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Shouldn’t that read ‘deliberately‘ confused verbalism?
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Yes, but isn’t that the whole point of it, to mislead and obscure the truth.
Used to be called Verbal Diahorreah or similar.
Now it’s just normal PC speechifying.
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Yes, which is what I was saying. Pratchett described people like this as similar to cuttlefish, disappearing in a cloud of ink in distressing situations. These days the ink is replaced by sound bites, but the principle stands.
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It seems to me that I have been seeing quite a lot of Raptors in the Bacchus Marsh area this year. There is a new wind farm about 15 km away. Hopefully it will not kill too many of them.
I had a very close encounter with a wedge tailed eagle last Sunday. The eagle and I had different ideas about the best way to climb in a thermal. This time my way seemed to be about equal to his and we can close to collision 3 times as our courses converged. The eagle showed his superior manoeuvrability by flipping out of the way at the last moment.
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It’s no surprise. This effect has been known for quite a while now but has been ignored by politicians, rent seekers, activists and UN.
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Those windmills are the most ugly engineering edifices to blot the landscape. As well as bird manglers, scenery destroyers.
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Anthropogenic Global Diclofenac.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis
“Nine species of vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction[1] after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades.[2] As recently as the 1980s there were up to 80 million white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) in India; but today the population numbers only several thousand.
Population of three Gyps vultures in South Asia decreased by about 95% in 1990s. A major contributing factor in declining populations of vultures is believed to be widespread use of drugs such as Diclofenac……”
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[…] This new myth took flight with a Daily MailOnline story with a headline claiming “Wind farms are the ‘new apex predators’: Blades kill off 75% of buzzards, hawks and kites that live nearby, study shows.” The GWPF quickly posted the Mail story on its site, WUWT lazily copied GWPF’s copy of the Mail, and JoNova excerpted it. […]
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