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

Personally, I'd rather have them airplane-friendly than bird-friendly.

For every bird that has the bad luck to hit a radio tower, likely hundreds are
chopped-up by wind farms.
 
My father was an Air Force radar technician. He says that seagulls would routinely come swooping in too close
to the towers and drop to the ground. Half an hour later they'd still be sizzling on the inside.

Of course radar is basically microwave. Not the same thing as a chance encounter with a freestanding FM tower.
 
I have birds crash into my house. My office has a big picture window and a crow crashed into it. A couple have died, but most just get stunned, pick up, and fly away.
 
DavidEduardo said:


In 58 years in radio, including many as transmitter engineer, I have never seen a dead bird near a tower. And I do not know anyone who has.
Click to expand...

Yes the claims are complete and total BS. With the numbers tossed around by supposed advocates claiming radio and TV towers kill birds, given all the years, I would have been up to my knees in dead birds by now. Quite to the contrary, in over 30 years I've never seen a single dead bird around any tower sites.
 
There's how many towers in the country? A few hundred thousand? 7 million birds a year is a lot of bird strikes on each and every tower, every year.

Now, would I really see every starling? Probably not. But if there's one on my tower every 2-3 weeks, I'm pretty sure I'd notice once in a while...
 
Kelly A said:
Yes the claims are complete and total BS. With the numbers tossed around by supposed advocates claiming radio and TV towers kill birds, given all the years, I would have been up to my knees in dead birds by now. Quite to the contrary, in over 30 years I've never seen a single dead bird around any tower sites.
Click to expand...

Your observation is the most valid I can think of as you have likely visited more different sites more often than I have.

But during the roughly two decades when I either had a studio / office facility at the tower site or visited a site nearly every day, I never saw a bird lying dead beneath the tower or the guy wires. And that includes locations as different as at 10,000 to 13,000 feet AMSL in the Andes, at near sea level at Guayaquil and Miami, in tropical forests in Puerto Rico and in the desert in Phoenix to name a few. All had one thing in common: no dead birds.

I would say the chances of finding a dead bird at the base of a tower is about the same as the chance of finding a thrill-seeking tower climber in the same state. I never had one of those, either, although I have been through a couple of near misses. That proves that the birds are smarter than a lot of humans.
 
TheBigA said:
I have birds crash into my house. My office has a big picture window and a crow crashed into it. A couple have died, but most just get stunned, pick up, and fly away.
Click to expand...

You need to put flashing holiday lights around your picture windows. The problem is that the red ones may give passersby the wrong impression.
 
I have seen/had dead birds at the transmitter site. At the bottom of the power pole they landed on and got across two phases. Had at least 5 dead crows on the ground and totally hosed set of fuse holders on the pole. Couple of the birds were blown apart real good. Had another single bird take a fuse out at another site. I see more birds die from the power lines.
 
I have seen a handful of birds hit glass windows in skyscrapers and even small, one story buildings. Can't recall EVER seeing any birds not happily content chilling on a tower. Wires may be another story on the towers. I guess that would be bad vision issues. Strobey lights are everyone's friends. Think these ultra bright LED lights will cause billions of mishaps? I guess traffic lights will be the next thing under attack.
 
The day after the Lake Gun tower killed 2,300 birds, engineers removed the bird feeder from the top of the antenna mast saying, "We thought we were helping to preserve the bird population."

But seriously, how does NPR justify this article? NPR is supposed to be the arbiter of all things correct. Is it sloppy reporting or is there a hidden agenda? I can't see a motive -- there's little money to be made from the sale of flashing lights.
 
I once worked at a place that had both a 700' and 1500' tower in back. No dead birds there. I think those numbers are total B.S.

Keep in mind there are estimated to be between 200 and 400 billion birds in the world. Huge numbers fall victim to weather, disease, predators, etc. Any that might be killed by flying into a tower are a microscopically tiny number in comparison.
 
wadio said:
But seriously, how does NPR justify this article? NPR is supposed to be the arbiter of all things correct. Is it sloppy reporting or is there a hidden agenda? I can't see a motive -- there's little money to be made from the sale of flashing lights.
Click to expand...

Good point. This is a classic example of "fake news".

The idea that any more birds die at a tower site than on a comparably sized piece of grassland or woodland has been debunked by knowledgeable groups such as the SBE.

There was also suggestion that the Gun Lake incident was wildly exaggerated and there appears to be little evidence that the deaths were caused by impact injuries as opposed to some natural cause related to disease or diet.

There are many references on the Internet more recent than the alleged "Lake Gun Tower Deaths" relating incidents of mass deaths of fish-eating birds in Michigan due to a form of botulism caused by the fish.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/11/botulism_suspected_in_100s_of.html

If I could find many, many examples of similar incidents via a simple search, why couldn't NPR?

Apparently the Gun Lake incident occurred 40 years ago.

The article also states that towers can be as high as 1000 feet, when in fact the country is populated by a great number of towers up to 2000 feet in height. They also would seem to be pointing the finger at radio stations, rather than the many users of towers in the communications, cellular and other industries. So many poorly written and researched topic presented as facts.
 
DavidEduardo said:
If I could find many, many examples of similar incidents via a simple search, why couldn't NPR?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that this is an example of a story that wasn't produced or reported by NPR, but rather by one of its member stations: WCMU at Central Michigan University. Not exactly subject to the same editorial process. Should there be fact checking when they pick up an affiliate story? Sure. But it begins with the affiliate, and this is often what happens when you take stories from outside sources. It's likely we'll see much more of this in lots of other places. We already do at Huffington Post, which is a news aggregator.
 
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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.
 
Kelly A said:
I doubt these people would garner the same audience or interest, if suggesting the elimination of utility structures.
Click to expand...

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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