Hi all I had initially thought of replying just to Bill but decided to reply to all.
I have NO vested interest in wind power or birds for that matter. I do however believe that wind power presents an excellent opportunity to move towards a more sustainable form of energy, and I have been researching avian behavior and birding for 15 years. Wind turbines kill a minute number of birds annually. The numbers are in the single digits per year per turbine. Compare those numbers to domestic cats, buildings, and towers, and you will see that concerning yourself with wind turbine caused avian mortality is insignificant. As well as the fact that to build a building, radio, television, or cellular tower, or own a cat, you do not need to complete a $100,000's study of how they will affect birds. Just some food for thought. Below are just a few links to some peer-reviewed journal articles concerning avian interaction with wind turbines. http://www.outlierproductions.com/Resources/Barrios%20bird%20wind.pdf http://www.jstor.org/stable/3082982 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3784243 http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/610790__909088697.pdf Avian interactions with television towers, or buildings http://www.jstor.org/stable/4514603 http://www.birdsandbuildings.org/docs/WinStrikeMortalityTJO.pdf http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:SfGsZ-2oBKoJ:scholar.google.com/+avian+ mortality+building+strike&hl=en&as_sdt=20000000000 Predation of birds by domestic cats http://up.picr.de/2379461.pdf http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=ENV&recid= 3596640&q=predation+of+birds+by+domestic+cat&uid=1090184&setcookie=yes Matthew Voisine Wildlife Biologist U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Planning - Environmental Analysis Branch 26 Federal Plaza - Rm 2151 New York, New York 10278-0090 Voice: 917.790.8718 Fax: 212.264.0961 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Evans Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 6:24 PM To: [email protected]; cayugabirds Subject: [nysbirds-l] Blockbusting Greetings birders, In the lull between NY breeding bird atlases, I thought some birders out there might be interested in some mid-season blockbusting. In this case, it's not USGS blocks but the locale of a proposed wind energy project in western NY. The proposed Alabama Ledge wind farm, about 5 miles northwest of Batavia, NY would consist of up to 52 wind turbines and border the southern edges of the Iroqouis National Wildlife Refuge and the Oak Orchard Wildlife Management Area. The Town of Alabama, NY is the lead agency and is currently weighing the proposal and its draft environmental impact statement. The latter included a breeding bird study in which the stated goal was: "locating and counting breeding resident birds within the areas proposed for development. The surveys were conducted in the first two weeks of June based on the regional timing recommended for USGS BBS in western New York (USGS 2001)." Toward that end, a consultant hired by the wind project developer carried out two 3 minute point count surveys at 20 points within the wind project area. That is all the breeding bird survey planned to be conducted for this wind project and it provides the formal record for consideration of breeding birds that might be potentially impacted by the project. To me that seems like a grossly inadequate level of assessment, especially so for a wind project proposed to be built in such close proximity to some of our precious wildlife refuges. For any wind project in New York (and beyond) it seems we should have a detailed record of what was there prior to the wind project's construction. I'm planning on heading over to the locality of the Alabama Ledge wind project this Sunday to bird along the roadsides within the proposed wind project area. I'd welcome coordinating with any similarly interested birders this Sunday and collating sightings from birders visiting the location over the next month. The goal would be to send the Town of Alabama, NYDEC and USFWS a list of additional breeding species within the proposed wind project development, that were not detected in the developer's survey, which might be impacted by the wind project. A map of the project area along with the species detected by the developer's breeding bird study can be found at the following link: http://www.horizonwindfarms.com/northeast-region/documents/under-dev/alabama- ledge/deis/Appendix%20F2%20Avian%20and%20Bat%20Studies.pdf Please email me offlist if you are interested in participating in this "blockbusting" effort. Bill Evans -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ -- -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
