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How To Make Broadcast Towers More Bird-Friendly: Turn Off Some Lights

wadio said:
Seriously? Last I heard, "Morning Edition" is a NEWS program. Cute and quirky doesn't cut if the "facts" are wildly inaccurate.
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NBC's Today is a news program too. Morning Edition is a news magazine. There is hard news and there are features, just like Today.

There are no inaccurate facts. Birds fly into things. We know that. As I said, they crash into my house. Obviously there is a reason why the FAA now requires flashing lights. Unless you want to say that change was based on fake news.
 
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TheBigA said:
NBC's Today is a news program too. Morning Edition is a news magazine. There is hard news and there are features, just like Today.

There are no inaccurate facts. Birds fly into things. We know that. As I said, they crash into my house. Obviously there is a reason why the FAA now requires flashing lights. Unless you want to say that change was based on fake news.
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The third and fourth hour of Today are nowhere near "hard news", and won't be for the foreseeable future unless something nationally or worldly catastrophic happens.
 
DavidEduardo said:


You need to put flashing holiday lights around your picture windows. The problem is that the red ones may give passersby the wrong impression.
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I have the same problem with birds flying into my picture window as does Big A. Problem is, it almost always happens during daylight hours. I cannot remember any bird strikes at night. You can always tell where they hit because it knocks the dust off them and leaves a perfect imprint. Majority are doves.
 
TheBigA said:
Not sure what you're saying. The FAA already requires the flashing lights on all new towers. That went into effect in 2015. The article doesn't say if that change was as a result of birds in Michigan. Existing towers are grandfathered. According to the article, the FCC is recommending the change for existing towers, but it's not required. The law applies to all towers where lights are used, including cellular towers. I don't see where the article calls for any other action. To me, it's just another cute and quirky story.
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What I was saying is that those of us who visit transmitter sites on a regular basis, have seen far more birds killed through contact with utility AC lines than any broadcast tower. And yet..you won't find these whack-a-doos, making the same argument that we should reduce or eliminate the utility poles or high tension AC lines that provide power to their homes or businesses.

You're right that this is a retreaded story that's been around for a while. Problem is, it reignites the topic with no empirical evidence, just nonsensical claims to back up their numbers.

This is right up there with the story about the trash island the size of Texas somewhere in the Pacific ocean comprised of plastic water bottles and shopping bags. Just as the bird killing tower statistics, you'd think somewhere there would be a satellite image or observations from the crew of the ISS to back up the Texas-sized island of trash, but no. Just as the bird killing towers, the story continues stoked by media looking for a water-cooler story that doesn't involve our new President.
 
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That's a good point. I never see birds flying around the house at night although they periodically smack into my windows during the day. Do birds sleep at night? NPR should investigate!
 
Kelly A said:
Problem is, it reignites the topic with no empirical evidence, just nonsensical claims to back up their numbers.
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But the "nonsensical claims" are all sourced to authoritative people. One of the people works for the state. The other now works for the FCC. As I said, there's a reason why the FAA changed its rules about tower lights. I doubt very much that a feature story will "reignite" a topic when there's no further action required. The lights will be switched to flashing as they wear out. As I said, a cute and quirky story about central Michigan.
 
TheBigA said:
But the "nonsensical claims" are all sourced to authoritative people. One of the people works for the state. The other now works for the FCC.
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And neither appears to regularly have visited transmitter sites.

This all seems to be related to the Michigan incident at Lake Gun. It appears, in retrospect, that the deaths were related to botulism poisoning. Many more cases have since been identified as having that cause, and a study is ongoing near Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.

But when the incident happened, the tower was a convenient thing to blame since the science of the area was still not well researched.

As a kid, I remember occasional reports in the Record Eagle about bunches of dead birds at the dunes; there was even a theory that the dune buggy rides on the dunes were disturbing the birds and disorienting them.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And neither appears to regularly have visited transmitter sites.
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Hard to say. One now works for the FCC. But once again, regardless of what caused the bird deaths, the fact remains that the FAA changed the rule for tower lights in a way that the FCC biologist says is good for birds. Hooray.

I think the reason the Michigan incident was mentioned at all is because it happens to be local to WCMU, the station that produced the report. It allowed them to source it with a rep for the state. Had this story been written in DC, they might have chosen a different incident. I really don't know. As I said, there was a reason why the FAA made the change. Perhaps to extend bulb life, or perhaps for bird preservation. The biologist seems to believe the latter. And apparently, that's what she tells tower owners. But they're under no obligation to do anything.
 
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Kelly A said:
This issue is more than just this particular story. About two years ago I attended a public meeting at FCC H.Q. where the advocates making these ridiculous claims, made them in front of Commissioners. Unfortunately, the FCC sat and listened politely, with no opportunity for rebuttal or common sense.

Steve's comment about birds being blown up on utility poles is valid, but somehow I doubt these people would garner the same audience or interest, if suggesting the elimination of utility structures.
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There are some environmentalists who are so extreme, their goal truly IS to take us back to the
11th Century.
 
wadio said:
This Wikipedia* article helps put things in perspective:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towerkill#cite_note-FAA_Report-5

And here's the FAA's 2012 evaluation of how to reduce avian fatalities:

http://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/tctn12-9.pdf

And the FCC's 2015 response:

http://wireless.fcc.gov/migratory-birds/Light_Changes_Information_Update_120415.pdf



*Wikipedia is not always completely reliable
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I find it interesting that one of the studies is based on observations at a 1000 foot tower at Tallahassee, FL. For a number of years I was in charge of WTNT in that market. We had a 900' tower, and never had a bird death issue.

I think that if one wants to find a dead bird in the areas where towers are typically located, it is likely that by walking around the site and the area one would occasionally be found. My question is whether the number of dead birds found on any piece of property of the same size as a tall tower site would be significantly different.
 
The only wildlife encounter I know of was a mouse getting into the transmitter of a station I worked. The poor CE toiled for two long days tearing things apart to figure out the cause of the outage. Naturally this happened back when AM played music and transmitters were full of tubes. I never saw dead birds around the FM tower or the 3 tower AM array.
 
jimbo said:
The only wildlife encounter I know of was a mouse getting into the transmitter of a station I worked. The poor CE toiled for two long days tearing things apart to figure out the cause of the outage. Naturally this happened back when AM played music and transmitters were full of tubes. I never saw dead birds around the FM tower or the 3 tower AM array.
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Wonder what fried mouse tastes like. Guess I'll never know. :)
 
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