This whole bird thing is totally ridiculous.
Birds fly in, under, over, around, and through trees, sit on power lines,
yagis, and every wire that has any elevation (and are a lot harder to see
than a tower) all day every day and then run into towers? I don't think so.
This thing is just more idiots who get a kick out of CAUSING problems.
My turn on the Soap Box, who's next?
73, Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "AA6DX - Mark" <aa6dx@arrl.net>
To: <rdhinkle@sbcglobal.net>; <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Commercial Comms Towers and Bird Strikes
> Well .. I think most of this dead bird thing is plain HOOOIE .. I have
> been working on and around towers since the 60s .. and have NEVER seen any
> avian mortality rates as outlined here. Even spotted owls are smarter
than
> that!
> Perhaps the 8-land birds are different than the left coast breeds. Of
> course, dead critters are found now and then .. they all die SOMETIME, and
> .. perhaps by hitting towers or wires. Or... perhaps holding on to a
steel
> structure is where they prefer to meet their maker. Have had them commit
> suicide on our windows a few times .. but not many.
> Let me iterate .. I have NEVER seen a preponderance of dead sparrows,
> robins, hawks, gulls, egrets///etc/ around any west coast tower,
commercial
> nor Amateur Radio ... and never had any at all below my VA ( Washington
DC )
> tower on top of a hill. I would suggest that ZZ perhaps found a bunch of
> dead birds that ingested DDT or the likes, and rested on the "waaars" to
> perish ... were autopsies performed? .. And .. why, oh why, do us here in
> FAR Northern California NOT see this phenomena? We have lots of towers,
and
> a gaggle of avians .. ??? Tell us why, oh biologist!
> Mark Nelson - AA6DX
> mailto: AA6DX@ARRL.NET
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <rdhinkle@sbcglobal.net>
> To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 8:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Commercial Comms Towers and Bird Strikes
>
>
> OK guys, I'll take a poke at this too.... As a long time ham and
> professional wildlife biologist, I can tell you from personal experience
> that tall communication towers are lethal to songbirds, and in massive
> quantities. On one occasion, I picked up a heaping full bushel of
> neotropical migratory songbirds (warblers, thrushes, orioles, tanagers and
> others) under the nearest TV tower in Lansing Michigan, near the MSU
campus.
> Tall towers continue to kill as many hundreds of thousands of migrating
> songbirds as they move through Central America, Mexico, the US and Canada
> during both spring and fall migrations. Exhaustion only seems to be a
factor
> on foggy nights, when the birds become confused by the lighting.
Otherwise,
> it's mainly direct strikes against the tower itself and the numerous guy
> lines that each tower needs. Nearly all songbirds migrate at night (tough
to
> avoid what you can't see) so most of the fatalities are between dusk and
> dawn. The recent addition of a jillion cell phone towers adds to the
> carnage. One publication states:
> _________________________________________________________
>
> "Lighted communication towers turn out to be one of the more serious
> problems for birds, especially for migratory species that fly at night.
One
> study began its conclusion with, "It is apparent from the analysis of the
> data that significant numbers of birds are dying in collisions with
> communications towers, their guy wires, and related structures." Another
> report states, "The main environmental problem we are watching out for
with
> telecommunication towers are the deaths of birds and bats."
>
> This is not news, as bird collisions with lighted television and radio
> towers have been documented for over 50 years. Some towers are responsible
> for very high episodic fatalities. One television transmitter tower in Eau
> Claire, WI, was responsible for the deaths of over 1,000 birds on each of
24
> consecutive nights. A "record 30,000 birds were estimated killed on one
> night" at this same tower. In Kansas, 10,000 birds were killed in one
night
> by a telecommunications tower. Numerous large bird kills, while not as
> dramatic as the examples cited above, continue to occur across the country
> at telecommunication tower sites.
>
> The number of telecommunication towers in the U.S. currently exceeds
77,000,
> and this number could easily double by 2010. The rush to construction is
> being driven mainly by our use of cell phones, and to a lesser extent by
the
> impending switch to digital television and radio. Current mortality
> estimates due to telecommunication towers are 40 to 50 million birds per
> year. The proliferation of these towers in the near future will only
> exacerbate this situation. "
> ___________________________________________________________
>
> The mechanisms involved in migration by various species remain poorly
> understood, whether magnetic fields or celestial navigation (night) or
light
> polarization, landmarks, magnetic fields, regional low frequency sounds or
> other means (day), most migratory methods seem to lead massive flocks of
> individual or mixed species along "ancestral" migration routes. When we
put
> up a tall tower, they fly into it. The addition of many new towers to the
> additional losses from constant habitat loss result in a marked, long-term
> decline in migratory songbird numbers. I don't think that most ham towers
> are tall enough to contribute significantly to bird strike losses, though
> certainly some occur. Perhaps the switch to commercial satellite radio,
TV,
> voice and data comms and other communications will bring the day when the
> iron comes down and the skies are clear again.
>
> If you want to see something impressive, start watching Doppler Radar
> reports from the Cuba-Florida-Georgia region starting in early April
through
> early May, and see hundreds of millions of songbirds lift off as darkness
> falls each evening and head north. On one hand, it's a pretty stunning
radar
> report; on the other hand, it shows us how finite songbird populations
are.
>
>
> Bob Hinkle, KK8ZZ
> Solon, Ohio 44139
> Grid: EN91gj
>
>
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>
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