Are those the ones with the balls on them?
Posted on 10/05/2005 2:26:36 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
With the fall bird migration at its height, one of many dangers faced by nighttime migrants was harshly illustrated recently when as many as 400 disoriented songbirds were killed as they crashed into the guy wires holding up a Madison television tower.
The incident, on the night of Sept. 13-14, may lead to the creation of a group to study the dangers posed to migrating flocks by communication towers, said bird specialists with the Department of Natural Resources.
"It's an issue that has been with us for decades," said Sumner Matteson, an avian ecologist with the DNR. "But we really haven't done anything about it."
DNR bird experts and many amateur birders have been talking about the kill last month at the WMTV (Ch. 15) tower adjacent to the West Madison Little League fields just off Schroeder Road. A similar kill happened on the night of Sept. 7-8, said Steven Ugoretz, an environmental specialist with the DNR who works on tower-related issues.
Ugoretz was alerted to the Sept 13-14 kill early in the morning and arrived at the site by about 7 a.m.
Records kept by searchers who collected dead and dying birds showed that 172 birds representing 23 species were found around the base of the tower. Ugoretz said scavengers, including crows and cats, had already taken another 200 or more. That's why he estimated the number of birds killed at around 400. Searchers didn't search the heavily timbered area north of the tower.
"There were birds all over the place," Ugoretz said.
Ugoretz and Matteson said such kills are not unusual during spring and fall migrations and are an increasing concern because of multiple threats to the world's songbirds - from feral cat predation to destruction of their overwintering rainforest habitats. Most of the birds killed by communication towers are neotropical migrants, birds that winter in the tropics and migrate at night.
Most of the dead birds collected Sept. 14 were warblers, including five golden-winged warblers, which are on a special watch list kept by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because their numbers are declining. Other birds included red- eyed vireos, American redstarts, ovenbirds, common yellowthroats and a rose-breasted grosbeak.
Officials with WMTV were not available Tuesday for comment. Ugoretz said the WMTV tower is of special concern because of its 1,100-foot height. Nighttime neotropical migrants usually fly at altitudes of 1,000 to 2,000 feet. Other towers in the Madison area, he added, don't seem to cause as many kills, although collection of such data is spotty when it exists.
Matteson and Ugoretz said they hope to convene a task force, made up of bird experts and representatives from the communications industry, to study the issue and find ways to modify the towers so that birds avoid them. Possible solutions, Matteson said, include using phosphorescent lights to illuminate guy wires and changing the blinking frequency of red warning lights, which are required by the Federal Aviation Administration on towers taller than 200 feet.
The problem is difficult to address both because of the lack of record-keeping on such kills and because the migration of birds - what triggers it and how the birds find their way - remains shrouded in mystery. There are nights in the spring and the fall when the skies are filled with tens of thousands of migrating birds, but there is much scientists don't know about their behavior.
John Idzikowski, a Milwaukee ornithologist who uses radar to study bird migrations, has radar images that capture immense clouds of birds migrating at night. "It looks like a storm on the radar," he said.
Though there is considerable uncertainty about exactly what happens, scientists believe migrating birds lose sight of navigational stars in the glare of cities and zero in on the bright lights on some tall towers. Often tower kills happen on nights when bad weather forces migrating flocks closer to the ground. Circling the lights on the towers in large flocks, the birds are felled by the guy wires, invisible to them in the dark.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that as many as 5 million birds are killed in the country each year in such collisions.
"People say that 'Well, it's just a hundred birds or so,' " Idzikowski said. "But the problem is that it's a hundred birds here and a hundred birds there. And already there are so many factors working against these birds."
Cats did moderately better on similar tests.
The cure to bird flu!
Are those the ones with the balls on them?
Start with NBC/CBS/ABC and I'll go along with it.
I know you are kidding, but Madison is Berkeley-East. I wouldnt be surprised if some whacko leftist legislation is proposed..
Wel - at least the cure to bird flu panic.
Guy wires - yeah, the birds hit guy wires!
Tin foil hat (and suit!) on!
Okay, I'm willing to be the odd man out. It would be nice if there were a relatively inexpensive fix and less of our feathered friends met this fate. Just as I value life in the womb, there is a certain value I give to their lives also.
Would abolishing broadcast TV (a 1930s technology) be a major loss to society?
I think this is another story being put out by the Luddites among us. If there had been such a horrific bird kill, we would have pictures of it posted all over the maniacal greenies sites. But, all we get are urban legends. Same as the windmills. Tremendous amount of dead birds, no pics.
When there is a fish die off some where we always get a picture of several dead fish floating, even if they had to gather them to make it more impressive..
'Birdbrain' comes to mind.
Thank You! I was just thinking the same thing. But, then there are mockingbirds, who with the least provocation will sing all night while jumping into the air for a few feet and then alighting on dead limbs or power lines. whatever is availble. seems they can see them.
But they are not migratory like swallows , robins, martins and others.
Oh and it is believed that geese actualy use the stars at night to navigate.
It does, indeed, compute. Consider all the money from study grants, and the juicy possibility of a friendly lawsuit brought by one of GangGreens swarm of NGO affiliated lawyers.
Doug,
How about using a natural, proven way to scare birds - the scare crow.
But since this is Berserkley East we are discusing, and since it is true that perhaps the scariest thing in America is a Liberal - well, there is no way to avoid concluding that hanging Liberals from those wires would work.
If a scare crows work, why not scare Liberals?
I like it.
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