Wind Turbines Kill Birds - But Not Many

Abstract from Bird Study
30th April 1996

For some years there has been a nagging suspicion that the huge wind turbines used to generate electricity might be very dangerous to birds.

Three Dutch ornithologists (Musters, Noodervleit and ter Keurs) reporting in the latest issue of Bird Study (43, 124-126) searched the area around five turbines every two days for a year. There were five turbines and they were in an apparently particularly vulnerable area for the birds - an estuary area with large numbers of bird movements. They only found 26 bodies of which only six were definitely killed by the turbines, three may have been and for eight the cause of death could not be determined. The last nine were definitely not killed by the turbines.

The definite deaths were large birds - a Brent Goose, two Mallards, a Gadwall, a Herring Gull and an Oystercatcher. The possibles were a Black-headed Gull, a Black-tailed Godwit and a snipe of some sort.

This can be taken as relatively good news. Had hunting been allowed in the area, there would undoubtedly have been many more birds killed - and deliberately!

Chris Mead