Greetings!
Birds are in the news, from blackbirds in Arkansas to Turkey Vultures in Woonsocket. One sure thing that gets our phone to ring at Audubon is concern about birds. It's our visual connection to nature, we see birds - or lack of - and we make a connection to the natural world and its health.
The event in Arkansas, and now others spots around the world, are individual events but these collective accounts of bird death have even my cynical friends taking pause. As David Yarnold, president of National Audubon, stated in a recent commentary, "It is vital for people to pay attention because so often the fate of birds is linked to our own. Birds breathe the same air we do, and they are part of the same food web that sustains us all."
In Arkansas, the birds that died - Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds and European Starlings - are abundant and flock together in large nighttime roosts during the winter. These roosts can contain from tens of thousands to 20 million individual birds or more, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The current theory is that a loud noise, presumably fireworks, scared the birds into flight where they collided with utility wires, poles, trees and each other. Experts are saying this is the most likely cause,
given the huge number of birds moving at one time and their lack of night vision.
It would be like, if you were startled from bed in the middle of the night, without any lights on, and ran through your house. There is a high probability you'd run into something - especially, if you had another million people in your house!
"Birds hit things all the time, but usually it's only one or two, and so we don't really notice it," says Dr. Kevin McGowan, a scientist with Cornell Lab. "In fact, we know that hundreds of millions of birds die every year from flying into windows, buildings, power lines, radio antennas, cell towers, and wind turbines. That number dwarfs the present event, but it goes unnoticed because it's spread across the country and throughout the year."
It's this "unnoticed" population that concerns us at Audubon.
Right now, Rhode Island is in the midst of an energy infrastructure "revolution." Wind turbines are being considered in towns across the state as well as offshore. Utilities are upgrading towers and poles.
Audubon supports alternative energy sources, including wind power, but we believe emphasis is needed, prior to the approval and implementation of new wind energy projects, to asses potential risks to birds and wildlife.
Projects should be evaluated through site analysis and assessment on location, design, operation, and lighting - carefully evaluated to prevent adverse impacts.
We need to have a strong voice in assuring this happens. Please support our efforts by taking the following steps.
1) Make sure that we have the correct town you live in and your correct phone number so we can quickly reach out to you when your voice is needed at town meetings and state regulatory hearings. You can easily do this by updating your eWing profile - go to the bottom of this email where it reads "This email was sent to jhall@asri.org by jhall@asri.org | Update Profile/Email Address | Instant...." Click "Update Profile" and make sure we have the correct information.
2) Consider making a donation to support our advocacy efforts. You can simply click the "donate" button at the end of this note and you'll provide us with the necessary funds to protect birds...and our future.
To learn more about the recent Arkansas event, you can click this link and listen to National Public Radio's On Point radio program, from Thursday, Jan 6, 2011.
Good Birding,
Jeff
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