Isle Of Man Seabird Populations Plummet As Wind Farms Overwhelm The Irish Sea

21/6/2019

Herring Gulls are down 82%, European Shag down 51%, Razorbills down 55%. The list goes on....
* The world's biggest offshore wind farm is just a few miles away.
* Isn't there a conspicuous connection?

The Isle Of Man wildlife charity Manx Birdlife has reported a shocking 40% decline in the populations of many species of sea birds around the island's coast.
The worrying figures emerged following a comprehensive census that took place over two years. Whatever the reason for the sharp decline of the birds, it illustrates that something has gone very wrong.
I've noted with interest that this unprecedented drop in populations, of several of the island's maritime species, coincides with the proliferation of wind farms in the Irish Sea - something which has worried me during the past few years, as I have witnessed the frenzied development of the wind industry in the waters off the western coasts of England and Wales.

World's Biggest Offshore Wind Farm just a few miles away....
We know that offshore turbines kill birds and bats, though it is almost impossible to estimate the number of casualties because there are no retrievable carcasses to count at sea....
It is also highly likely that wind farms adversely affect many marine mammals.
The world's largest offshore wind farm is now in operation off the Cumbrian coast at Walney, just 40 miles or so from the Isle of Man, and, with the news that nearby bird populations are in free-fall, we must seriously ask whether the huge turbines might be killing more birds than we ever anticipated.
The Isle of Man study was, ironically, partly supported by the Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm Project. How paradoxical would it be to find that the project itself, with its giant 640 feet turbines, was responsible for the plummeting numbers of sea birds.
The report is full of depressing statistics. Herring Gulls are down 82%, European Shag down 51%, Razorbills down 55%. The list goes on.

Marine Protected Areas "may not necessarily be major barrier to new projects..."
I've been increasingly concerned at the feverish pace of industrial offshore wind farm development in this country and especially in the Irish Sea. Such a high density of turbines in a confined area - an area renowned for its wildlife - has been watched with dismay by many environmentalists, especially since large parts of the sea have been designated Marine Protected Areas (MPA's), supposedly limiting the scale of industrial development in precious areas that provide important habitat for so many species.
Alas, development has been allowed in vast parts of the sea that fall just outside the protected zones - and there have even been hints that the MPA's themselves may not be off limit for future wind farm expansion. Last year, a report carried out for the Welsh government suggested that "this protection may not necessarily be a major barrier to new projects" - which sounds shockingly irresponsible to me.

Isle of Man plans might seriously threaten birds' survival
Though the Isle Of Man currently has none of its own offshore wind farms, their government is reportedly close to approving industrial wind development off the island's coast as early as next year. Such plans might seriously threaten the survival of species already struggling to cope with the industrialisation of their habitat.
Wind energy companies might flaunt their green ideologies for all to see - but their industry nevertheless hides a grim reality. Their 'green' energy kills wildlife.

Money Vs Wildlife...
Speaking about the alarming drop in bird populations, managing director of Manx Birdlife, Neil Morris, suggested that "there are a number of causes for these declines and the solutions, such as protecting nesting sites, restoring food chains and mitigating climate change, will be challenging.”
It will be interesting to see whether more research will be carried out into just how many birds are being killed by the Irish Sea wind farms. My hunch is that many people would rather keep that information under their hats. So much money invested in offshore wind means that bad publicity would be very unwelcome and it is common for critics of the industry to be ridiculed.
It seems likely that vast swathes of our coastal seas are likely to be further industrialised by the wind giants - even if it is at the expense of wildlife.

Photo by Nicholas Doherty on Unsplash

19 Comments

Saighdear

23/6/2019 09:00:21 am

Well, off- the-cuff, you wold say it stands to reason - that on this large scale, you have essentially built giant scarecrows.
One finds dead rabbits etc on lightly used roads, but seldom on the motorways or othe very busy roads. Observation has shown that whether it's the noise or simply constant disturbance of traffic keeps livestock away: but hen you will get the odd animal which drifts into a busy zone resulting in Chaos ( moreso perhaps caused by the Motorists ).

David

26/6/2019 10:31:43 am

Sorry Jason, but this is poor. You have made some very speculative statements about blaming wind turbines, which you clearly are against. You have overlooked overfishing, massive accidental catching of birds in fishing gear, introduction of rats, cats, dogs, pigs, goats, rabbits & cattle to seabird breeding places, destruction of nesting sites by development......but yeah, wind turbines.

Brenda H link

26/6/2019 11:18:49 am

We hear this so often when people point out the massive destruction of birds by wind turbines and the response is - cats, traffic etc. Listing all the ways wild life can be killed by humans and other animals does not justify adding to that list. We should be trying to reduce the carnage, not adding to it.

Jim Wiegand - Wildlife Biologist

26/6/2019 08:05:57 pm

When forced to share the same habitat, wind turbines become the primary killer of birds and raptors . Fraudulent research and the deliberate avoidance of other needed studies are covering up for this industry. Nothing is pushing birds species towards extinction faster than wind turbines. There in no need to deflect to other less important sources of mortality unless you condone the fraud talking place. I encourage everyone to look up anything I have posted about this terrible industry. This industry rigs their research and hides over 95% of mortality. For high status species they hide all of it. They will also conduct fraudulent research on populations to hide dwindling populations. In CA , fake golden eagle research is being used to overestimate their numbers by over 10 times. Fake research is also overestimating golden eagle numbers Scotland. My estimate is that their numbers are being overestimated by 4-5 times. Wind turbines are prolific killers of eagle and these countryside monsters are absolutely killing off this population. RSPB along with others are all lying about it.
Lastly when looking at any of my posts, keep in mind explain very clearly by using use the industry's own data why their research has no credibility.

David Young

27/6/2019 07:53:14 am

This reply to Jim Weigand....

I'd like to see your evidence of the fraud and lies you claim. For instance, are you accusing all the authors (around 200) of the papers in Scott Loss' 2016 review, of lying and fraud?

That's a big claim that needs backing up.

In his review of studies for the US and Canada and found that predation by free-ranging domestic cats is estimated to be the top source of human-caused mortality (excluding indirect drivers such as habitat loss and climate change) with between 1.4 and 4.0 billion birds killed annually in the U.S and between 204 and 348 million in Canada. The next-biggest threats are similar for both countries, including collisions with buildings (US 365–988 million; Canada 16–42 million), automobiles (US 200–340 million; Canada 9–19 million), and power lines (US 8–57 million; Canada 10–41 million). Other mortality sources with systematically derived estimates include collisions with communication towers (US 6.6 million; Canada 220,000), electrocutions at power lines (US 0.9–11.6 million; Canada 160,000–802,000), and collisions with wind turbines (US 140,000–328,000; Canada 13,000–22,000).

What about Benjamin Sovacool 2009. Is he lying?

His study estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. This estimate means that wind farms killed approximately 7000 birds in the US in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 14.5 million.

If you have genuine concern for birds, then you need to start looking elsewhere. Otherwise it just seems like you have an anti-wind ideological axe to grind or are a conspiracy theorist.

GeorgeEH

23/6/2019 01:59:50 pm

“As a result of the rash and hasty expansion of renewable energy from wind power, the populations of almost 50% of all bird species have significantly decreased”.

“The most widespread destruction of nature since the Second World War”

“The rotor blades of a wind turbine have a radius as long as a football field and rotate at 300 km/h. Against these huge propeller walls, red kites and other birds don’t stand a chance. The rotor blades hit large birds, such as storks, raptors and ducks, particularly often.
Rare ‘Birds of prey’ need large areas, but collide disproportionately often.’

German Wildlife Foundation 24th October 2017

GPC

23/6/2019 02:26:44 pm

The rate of destruction to birds seems to be on par with any negative effects of climate change. So in reality, we’ve added yet another layer to the problem.

steve davison link

23/6/2019 04:29:48 pm

Interesting article. I am a long time campaigner against wind farms and will share this amongst our group, some of who have noted with dismay the RSPB's support for these things. Of course correlation isn't causation but this certainly warrants more research. Unfortunately you will get no support form the mainstream media to promote this. I can just imagine Roger Harrabin sticking his fingers in his ears and singing "la la la".

I would recommend making contact with with Paul Homewood and his excellent website notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com. I'll share this with him too.

E link

24/6/2019 09:05:41 am

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/21/wind-power-results-bird-deaths-overall/

Magnus

26/6/2019 09:05:26 pm

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/06/26/why-climate-activists-threaten-endangered-species-with-extinction/#6594375523aa

26/6/2019 09:11:36 pm

Clean Technica banned me from making truthful science based comments about their website propaganda several years ago.

24/6/2019 04:29:42 pm

Sadly Walney will soon not be the biggest offshore windfarm as three combined in the Moray Firth with common boundaries will total 355 turbines. One is already constructed (Beatrice) and the other two are consented. I fear for the cetaceans and birds in this area but no-one in authority cares.

24/6/2019 10:56:15 pm

( long sigh ) ... yes indeed - more's the pity - AND litle work or benefits for us local folk. by Benefits I imply work related spin-offs. May as well be on Mars: - so far removed from or everyday problems. Can't even enjoy the view from the hilltops now. Scam Noxious Politicians for you!

25/6/2019 07:36:16 pm

When it comes to wind energy............Fraud rules, birds are being slaughtered off by the millions and the people are fleeced. When the last wild eagle in Scotland has been killed, RSPB will be still there taking wind money for their stupid breeding projects and lying by omission.

Jim Wiegand Wildlife Biologist

27/6/2019 05:35:21 pm

This is an example of wind industry peer reviewed study. Estimates of bird collision mortality at wind facilities in the contiguous United States. Dec 2013

I have outlined several reasons why this study has no scientific credibility.

"We estimate bird mortality at monopole wind turbines in the contiguous U.S."
This study relied upon the wind industry's own fraudulent data and did not account for the undersized search areas being used by the industry. Keep in mind with voluntary regulations and self-reporting, no science is required of the wind industry. The Authors say nothing about this.
The authors did make some adjustments for varying search radius, but these adjustments accounted for small differences in the search area size used from site to site. The entire discussion of the mortality search area adjustments given in this study are very deceptive.
This study failed to point out several important facts about monopole mounted wind turbines. As the industry began installing these types of turbine towers and moved away from the lattice towers, tower height and turbine blade length increased dramatically. Wind turbine towers have grown from about 20 meters to 100 meters and blades have increased from 7 meters on 40 kW turbines to over 50 meters in length. The new turbines have much greater tip speeds which launch carcasses further. But instead of increasing carcass search areas in their mortality studies to accommodate these progressively larger turbines, the wind industry has deliberately stayed with their search areas of about 50 meters from towers even though their new turbines are as much as 51 times larger.

All the estimated bird mortality at monopole wind turbines in the contiguous US is derived from contrived mortality studies rigged to miss most of the turbine related mortality. These are studies with small designated search areas that pretend that carcasses that land beyond these tiny designated search areas do not exist.
"Between 140,000 and 328,000 birds are killed annually at monopole turbines."
These estimates have even lowered the old 2009 FWS number of 440,000 bird fatalities per year, which was based upon 25,000 MW.

The estimates from this study and the old FWS mortality estimates are not even close to being accurate because of the totally unreliable data used to get these estimates. A single 40 kW turbine has a rotor sweep of 154 Sq meters or 51 times smaller than a modern 2.5 MW turbine. A 100 kW turbine has a rotor sweep of 254 square meters or 25 times smaller than a 2.5 MW turbines. These are the primary turbines mounted on lattice towers that also had 50 meter carcass search areas.
In the past wind industry mortality search areas for carcasses around 51 small 40 kW turbines would have amounted to about 400350 square meters. Today the search area on a modern 2.5 MW turbine is about 7850 square meters and can even be far less. I have looked over industry studies that only looked for carcasses in areas of about 1300 square meters around each 2.3 mw turbines.

When this study was written, the US had about 61,000 MW of installed capacity. Accounting for the wind industry's flawed study methodology and their grossly undersized search areas, the true mortality to birds exceeds 6 million birds per year in the US.
"Mortality increases with increasing height of monopole turbines."

Of course mortality increases with increasing height of monopole turbines. The rotor sweep can be as much as 51 times greater when compared to turbines with mounted on lattice towers. These huge turbines mounted on monopole towers have always killed far more birds per turbine. Any modern turbine with 51 times more rotor sweep mounted on an 80 meter tower is going kill far more

27/6/2019 05:38:48 pm

Example of wind industry peer reviewed study continued....... birds than any small turbine mounted on a shorter 24.6 meter tower.

Some of these huge turbines are killing over 1000 birds and bats per year and even with grossly undersized search areas, far more bodies are still showing up in the industry's tiny search areas around each tower. They did not need a study to figure this out.

"Mortality rates appear to be lower in the Great Plains relative to other regions."

The Great Plains region has experienced the greatest amount of wind energy expansion in the last 7 years. This expansion has included the installment the industry's most modern and largest turbines. These are turbines that should have the largest search areas because carcasses can be found in areas of at least 200 meters in all directions from towers. The industry has instead used their grossly undersized carcass search areas in this region. The

The Great Plains region is also plagued with another problem that imparts reported mortality. This region has the most agriculture taking place around installed turbines. This agriculture plows and tills carcasses into the ground. As a result, many carcasses go undetected by industry searches.

Sadly, this was a peer reviewed study. The low mortality estimates given in this study will be quoted in the media, in future studies, and used to mislead communities about how devastating these turbines are to birds and bats living in their communities.

27/6/2019 06:35:45 pm

This article link was posted in these comments...............https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/06/26/why-climate-activists-threaten-endangered-species-with-extinction/?fbclid=IwAR28LHSdceWuqZnYaW1w9Xi3H199eKqbfeQfIFnfgwmXHz33Ldishp9qNek#2797daed23aa
While I agree with a lot that was written in this article, the author understates wind energy’s impact to species. Wind turbines are repeatedly referred to as a threat. This is wrong because wind turbines are mass killers. These countryside monsters annihilate birds and bats. Hitler was not a threat; he was a mass killer. In 1930 he was a threat. Ted Bundy was a threat in high school; he later turned into a serial killer.
“Wind turbines pose the single greatest threat to bats after habitat loss and white-nose syndrome.”…. Wind turbines are killing off species much faster than losses from habitat loss. Empty habitat surrounds all wind farms and the void with some species extends for many miles. Scientific research that has been deliberately avoided for decades, would document this.
“Only Hawaii requires bird and bat death data to be gathered by an independent third party and to be made available to the public on request” ………... Not true. “Independent” is in the eyes of the beholder and ABC birds is 100 percent wrong about this. Data collection in Hawaii is not independent because still adheres to the wind industry’s fraudulent research methodologies.
“Wind turbines have also emerged as one of the greatest human threats to many species of large, threatened and high-conservation value birds, after habitat loss from agriculture……………. Not true. Wind turbines are killing off raptor species much faster than losses from habitat loss. Empty habitat surrounds all wind farms and the void with some species extends for miles. Wind turbines are killing so many migratory golden eagles, that they are even impacting populations in Denali National Park. The public would know this if the Interior Department and USFWS had even an ounce of integrity.

“Wind energy threatens golden eagles, bald eagles, burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, Swainson’s hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites, peregrine falcons, and prairie falcons, among many others”…………….Wrong again. Wind energy slaughters all of these species in numbers beyond belief.

“For decades the wind industry has put out a steady stream of grossly misleading information about its wildlife impact.” ……….Misleading? How about stating a consistent 30 year pattern of nonscientific and contrived research used to conceal true conditions in the field?
“Smallwood calls the most-studied wind farm in California, Altamont Pass, a “population sink for golden eagles as well as burrowing owls.”……………….. Smallwood is not a good person to get a quote from because he has produced nonscientific wind turbine research for 20 years and “Comparing Bird and Bat Fatality-Rate Estimates Among North American Wind-Energy Projects was probably his worst. It was also one of the most damaging studies to the wildlife species being impacted because this highly quoted study used methodology that underestimated turbine mortality by 10-20 times.

Buzz

2/7/2019 03:27:42 pm

Where in the Manx BirdLife report does it state that wind turbines are the cause of the decline?

2/7/2019 05:18:43 pm

This statement will shed some light on the lack of credible research hiding a slaughter to tens of millions of birds annually in America and Europe...........“Biologically significant impacts to any bird or bat species, including those that are endangered and threatened, are highly unlikely”. “The weight of evidence gathered from studies conducted over many years is quite conclusive,” said Dr. Kerlinger. “ Industry expert Dr. Kerlinger went on to say that this opinion drew upon survey data collected at the project location and impacts were reviewed on birds and bats of offshore wind farms in Europe and onshore facilities in the United States.

For this false opinion Dr. Kerlinger drew upon the flawed survey data collected at the project location. He also reviewed the very limited information available pertaining to offshore wind farms. But most importantly, the mortality evidence from land based wind energy facilities looked at, was produced from contrived nonscientific research designed to hide mortality data.
The European Wind Energy Association in their recent report, “Birds and offshore wind farms” made this true statement: “For offshore wind, there is little knowledge regarding certain aspects, such as collision mortality”. Keep in mind that the first offshore wind farm was constructed 22 years ago in Denmark in 1991 and little is still known about offshore wind turbine collision mortality.
While all this may seem amazing to some, it makes a little more sense when one realizes that offshore wind turbine impacts cannot be studied with conventional wind industry methodology. Those methods call for searching around turbines for carcasses and then making calculated estimates. This cannot be done with offshore turbines because bodies drift away and remains quickly become fish food.
The obvious thoughts to most reading this are that there are other ways to get this information: Cameras. It would be so easy and inexpensive to do so with 24-hour video surveillance on a few select turbines.
So why has this not been done? It never will be because this visual truth about the wind industry’s ongoing bird and bat genocide would be revealed. It has not been done for the same reasons that it has not happened on land based wind turbines. Camera surveillance would be this self-proclaimed green industry’s worst nightmare. The site of peregrine falcons, whooping cranes, bald eagles or any beloved species being cut in half would not sit well with the public. With cameras, the industry’s hidden mortality would be revealed and the numbers would be staggering. Slow agonizing deaths of victims along with bodies being removed by scavengers and wind personnel would also be revealed.
I have also reviewed a number of Dr. Kerlinger’s wind industry related mortality studies. I have found all of them to be unscientific due to severely flawed research methodology. I found data his collection methods to be very biased and found his opinions and reports lacking in giving the professional forthright information one would expect from a true expert.

JASON ENDFIELD

Isle Of Man Seabird Populations Plummet As Wind Farms Overwhelm The Irish Sea

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