Thanks for this debunk!

It was never a myth. It was a lie.

Very few people that oppose wind turbines are actually any type of animal lover. If bird deaths really were the cause of their apprehension, ironically you'd see them push more for clean energy such as wind and solar, since pollution has killed and will continue to kill countless more beings than any wind turbine could dream of.

Almost like birds have eyes and a brain

Your heart is in the right place, but maybe avoid that hard R in the future.

Good article.

It always sounded so ridiculously unlikely, and that I’ve only heard people who definitely is just grasping for arguments never helped either.

Good that there is some actual data on it now

It always sound stupid,, especially because birds aren't that stupid

Good level headed article. Doesn't pretend wind turbines don't kill birds, but relativizes with the true killers: cats, windows and climate change (from which wind turbines are a remedy).

Yes, and well written too. It was easy to read, and not too long.

Came here to make some smart-ass comment, but the article already says it all. One additional thing I've read though is that rat poison (used by farmers) is also a major killer for birds-of-prey. But it may be a local problem.

Local ones with eyes and brains do hit my very dirty window sometimes. Natural selection I suppose.

Ya because fossil fuel never directly killed any birds... Cut to images of millions of birds covered in oil from a spill... And indirectly fossil fuels has killed trillions of birds.

It hasn't got anything to do with brain but with vision, we make these things light grey so they blend with the white sky. Just like birds have trouble seeing glass, another thing we made to be as invisible as possible.

Before anyone starts shouting windturbines don't kill birds because they saw this headline without reading the article, he is the key takeaway:

It turns out that while wind turbines do kill birds, they are statistically insignificant compared to the bigger killers we have in our cities and in our bedrooms.

Aside from the number being insignificant, there are efforts being made to minimize the amount of animals dying. The main solution is what is called bird curtailment - shutting the windmill off during migration activity.

Here is an article if you want to know more: https://appliedecologistsblog.com/2024/05/30/a-safe-passage-protecting-migratory-birds-in-the-north-sea/

Anyone can drive out to a windfarm and look for dead birds, there never were any.

Also, wind turbines are geared to spin slowly, it's not like a room fan, they only turn at 10-20 rpm.

Anyone can also visit a glass office building and ask caretakers how many birds a day they clean up.

Oh..but what about the HEADACHES.

Reading the article. Wind turbines do kill birds, but it's worse in certain areas, at certain times of year, and even certain times of day.

We can plan around these known quantities.

Also, guy wires and power lines can kill birds. Not quite as often, but sometimes a bird will hit the wire rather than land on it.

But the main killer of birds by far is furry and has cute little claws.

Fuck them birds. Now study the effects of fossil fuel and compare the two.

You should read the article fr. It says that wind turbines can and do kill birds, but that they are now designed and placed judiciously to reduce death toll. And that there are much greater threats, namely climate change which wind turbines helps with.

Wind turbines are not transparent I guess

Birds can see more colors than us, at least the majority of them, we have 3 types of photoreceptor: red, green and blue, but they also have a 4th one that allow to see ultraviolet light; that means that bird see a wider range of colors than humans so i strongly doubt that they can't distinguish between light grey and white

I see this as a chance for birds to go through natural selection.

My favorite part is that people who are against wind farms pretend to care about animals

I swear this comes from people thinking they work like giant fans, sucking birds in.

They areliterally functinally opposite of fans. Wind pushes the blades, not blades pushing wind.

Our house is older and is fairly light on windows, but the living room and kitchen both have a fairly sizeable one. I usually have to pick up 3-4 dead birds under them each year.

The sky is never pure white, and i'm not saying all birds will fly into them if the sky and the windmill are a perfect match. But at the same time, if it were a bright colour less birds would fly into it. Collisions will still happen. It also has to do with the blades rotating, but also that is easier to calculate when the blades are very visible. Still the best thing is to do turn them off sometimes. Best case scenario would be that you can switch over to a source that is also renewable.

It's obvious parties who are against renewables will use this problem to their advantage acting like the dead birds are the thing care about. Obviously switching from wind energy to fossil energy is not desirable, and luckily fossil fuels aren't the only alternative. Birds prefer to travel during the day, when there is also solar power for example. This is not a black and white discussion where you are either in favour of killing birds or in favour of saving the planet. Halting climate change and limiting the amount of animals dying for bad reasons are not mutually exclusive goals.

I also find that birds movements are not black and white as some birds such as the owl prefers moving under the cover of night.
However I feel like everyone who meets you is pro killing of the conversation.

A while back, I found myself driving across South Dakota, where there are plenty of fields of wind turbines.

There was one about 20 years yards from the road, with a paved driveway leading to it. Curious about all of Trump's allegations, I decided to check it out, and I pulled up next to the turbine.

First of all, his claim that they make lots of noise is a LIE. They make almost no noise at all. There was a quiet, regular mechanical thump, every few seconds or so, but it wasn't loud, and it couldn't be heard from the road.

Secondly, there wasn't one dead bird in the vicinity, despite there being MANY turbines operating in close proximity. If turbines were so deadly to birds, there should be a lot of them around this area, or at least a few, or at least ONE. But there were none.

Its almost like Trump either had no idea was he was saying, or he was just lying. Or both. Based on past experience, I'm going with BOTH.

However I feel like everyone who meets you is pro killing of the conversation.

How so?

Is the data as hard as the blades hitting the birds?^[Disclaimer: Just a silly joke]

I'm not saying wind turbines kill a lot if birds, but that 20 RPM can translate to blade tip speeds well over 100MPH because of how long they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7sGbPeXFaI

Wait, birds that are quick, nimble, agile and through evolution are designed to feel the tiny differences in air flow aren't actually being cut in half by the huge and relatively very slow wind turbines?
IMPOSSIBLE. LIES!!

Put a sticker on them?

I don't have a link but I believe this has absolutely been studied and it's the same as what OP says above but specifically about fossil fuels. The amount of birds that die to wind turbines is significantly less than the amount of birds that die to the fossil fuel industry.

Trump was talking, so of course he was lying.

20 years from the road

When your measuring distance in years, it's too far to drive

Got it, edited.

The stickers don’t actually work super well unless you cover your windows with them.

According to the Audubon society:

Window decals may help, but they must be placed no more than 2-4 inches apart in order to be effective. Birds will try to fly through larger gaps. This means that on large windows, many closely spaced decals may be necessary to deter bird collisions.

4 inches is about 10cm

There are more tips in the article but stickers don’t help nearly as much as people want them to.

There are companies that are experimenting with whole window films, but when I looked a bit ago they didn’t seem to be widely available to consumers.

just like they pretend to not molest children. there's a pattern.

Probably hysteria, but infrasonic emissions should be considered in the engineering. I have no clue what the infrasonic signatures are like for various wind turbines setups. I have lived near industrial infrasonic generators of other sources, and I have hated it before knowing anything about it.

Bottom line for me:

• wind powered electricity, good
• pollution of any kind, bad
• emissions are an engineering problem, not an intrinsic one (usually)

And yet, no dead birds.

If every wants to save birds, remove the windows from your house.

Doesn't work. Just makes people feel better.

Amazing how the headaches go away when there is a cash offer.

Maybe!

I work for a renewable energy company. We regularly find dead birds at our wind sites, including occasionally protected species like eagles (killing bats is also a concern).

There are steps you can take to mitigate the threat. We have dumped a ton of money into a really cool technology that scans the skies constantly with super high res cameras and automatically stops turbines in the vicinity of protected species.

Overall, renewable energy is still much better for wildlife than burning fossil fuels.

People saying this is some kind of hoax have not done their research. As someone who works for a renewable energy company they do hit birds (and bats, which are attracted to their low-frequency hum). I thought it was kind of nonsense before this job, but up close you realize those blades are spinning FAST. Theres nothing like them in the animal kingdom so birds arent afraid of them. There are steps you can take to mitigate the threat, but it is a valid concern. On the whole, though, they are still much better for the environment than pretty much any other type of energy generation.

It was a fun thought. Assuming a speed of 60 miles per hour, one car-year would be 525,600 minutes seasons of love miles