Lies by omission. House cats don't kill buteos and raptors, typical victims of wind towers.

Point -- the amount of birds killed by wind farms (or "windmills" to quote that all round expert on the subject, Donald Trump) is far outweighed (by a factor of approximately 2,000) by buildings with windows, in particular tall ones -- Trump Towers anyone?

Debate the effect of house cats on avian deaths if you like, but wind farms are comparatively low in the "pecking order"!

Fixing the problem would cost only a few dollars per wind turbine, small plastic whistles attached to the blades would warn away birds.

Cats? Are we talkin wild cats, mountain lions, panthers or domesticated?

If you read the article before flapping your ignorant gums, you would see it is house cats, although all breeds hunt birds.

and if you actually read the article, you'd see they CITE sources who only say 'Cats' - both in the quote and the graph - it is THIS article who is saying house cats. Maybe the article's author is confused regarding if it just domesticated house cats.

then i seriously count BS on that 3billion figure. There is no way a cat who is confined TO ITS HOUSE and maybe let out occasionally, can more than double that amount of deaths that are directly IN THE FLIGHT PATHS of birds. Buildings and automobiles should be number one. The only other way this is possible is if pet owners have both a cat and own a pet bird, and the cats eat the pet birds.

How many cats do you think kill Eagles or other large birds of prey?
None!
I have seen a few cats taken by birds of prey, never have I seen these large, slow breeding and in some cases, endangered birds, killed by a domestic cat.
But because a cat kills small birds, in some cases introduced pests, it's OK for wind turbines to kill these large and majestic birds.
The intellectual dishonesty here is staggering.

The American Bird Conservancy proposes "Smart Wind" energy development. Its not mentioned in this article, sadly.
-ensures turbines are located away from high bird collision risk areas;
employs effective (tested) mitigation to minimize bird fatalities;
-conducts independent, transparent, post-construction monitoring of bird and bat deaths to help inform mitigation; and
-calculates and provides fair compensation for the loss of ecologically important, federally protected birds.

Where does the absolutely ridiculous 2.4 billion birds killed by cats come from? That is like 48 million birds per state!?!?! Do you realize absurd that sounds? Wind turbines create pollution in themselves, ie the diesel engine they use when the wind dies down, the water usage, the noise pollution and the fact that they look hideous. I am all for being green by keeping my green in my wallet but many of these technologies are not yet ready and pushing them to market in many cases causes more harm than good. Climate change is not fact, true pollution is bad on that we can all agree but the more this pseudo science is pushed the more the rest of us view you greenies as flat earthers. Also bear in mind the wind turbine mediated avian deaths would increase with....
wait for it...
wait for it...
More wind turbines, I know weird concept. Although less birds crapping on my car not such a bad thing.

Based on the numbers given its 12.24 birds per cat in the US.

Your numbers are well off from reality, that means around 196,000,000 million cats in the US which is over double the actual amount. What about the dirty diesel used to power the wind turbine or the noise pollution interfering with bats? It is ironic, those trying to "save" the environment do more to destroy it. In fact you probably power your car with gasoline, have you ever been around a plant that makes gasoline? They reek, a lot, coal on the other hand really no smell. Hell you have probably never held a piece of anthracite, you ought to order some from Amazon. It really is quite pretty, there is a reason it is called black diamonds. You are pushing environmentally damaging tech that is unsustainable, the science needs to be further refined pushing these things to market and subsidizing them is reckless. If they where such a good idea people would jump on board because who doesn't like saving money.

Voice of reason, hah more like voice of insanity.

y'all realize wind turbines kill bats by blasting their inner ears with pressure differentials ... then they die...

Barotrauma

What types of birds do house cats kill? Are they common birds (such as sparrow) or endangered species such as (some species of) eagles?
I would suspect the former.

you idiot A-hole...it has nothing to do with needing to feed on the birds...read the damn research ... idiots always speak out their ... )o(

You just proved your own point about idiots. Well done.

You should tell that to my very well fed cats who leave me regular offerings of dead birds at the front door. They don't even eat them, they just kill them for the thrill of the hunt. So I'd say your notion of a myth is itself a myth.

Not all cats have owners. Or are you feeding barn cats, and ferrell cats? Researchers should not use peoples' pets as a variable or maybe they didn't.

Yes but we have a lot more cellphone towers than wind turbines. Need to factor that in. As turbines become more prevalent the kill factor will sky rocket. Plus as someone else said, house cats don’t kill endangered birds.

oh yes they do. they just kill the small ones...

Cats don't kill Golden Eagles, sonny.

What about the big birds?
https://www.sciencedaily.co...

Wind turbines are an exclusion criterium for me. I 'll never spend my vacations in a state or land , where are wind turbines

The cat stats are based on research done using cats that are active hunters. These cats were proficient bird hunters (most are not and prefer rodents). The number of bird kills cited did not involve anyone going around and hunting for corpses on a large scale, they calculated the number based on the kill rate of the cats they observed multiplied by the estimated number of cats in the world as if all these cats were outside hunting. The last time I looked into this, I found that they still had not adjusted their data to reflect cat behavior or to reflect the fact that a lot of cats are kept inside. This is just a number they like to throw out there whenever someone complains about something killing the birds. It is like trying to justify the overkill caused by fishnets by pointing out that fish are all eating each other.

Yes, I'm all for wind turbines, but the cats-kill-birds numbers are just silly.

Cat's don't kill eagles , wind turbines kill thousands.

We are experiencing a very reduced number of birds at our feeders in Western Mt. since the Columbia Gorge and Great Falls were covered with wind turbines - both are important migratory flyways why/ because birds use the wind to migrate - Wind power is inefficient, uses vast resources of minerals [oil, copper, steel, etc] and landscape [wildlife habitat] - birds are vital to the planet ecosystem... the alt power nuts [Al Gore] are creating imbalance that could prove catastrophic all for political profiteering.

acceptable loss? I don't think so.

yea well there are lots of other studies showing that wind turbines kill millions of birds
Also studies showing that the microwave radiation from phone masts disorientate birds (and bees) and so they get lost and die.
Depends what you want to believe.
Why would cats suddenly destroy the bird population when they never have in 1000's of years prevously?? It doesn't make sense.
Whereas man has changed the environment with wind turbines and cell phone towers and the bird populations have gone downhill since then.
Ideology is dangerous when it prevents you from seeing the truth
http://competence-initiativ...
http://savetheeaglesinterna...

This is really ugly. Grasping for something uglier than wind-tower casualties is not a good strategy ... And wind towers have lots of other issues. Here in the northeast they put the damn things on mountaintops, clearcutting the pristine forests for roads and power cables. There's a big debate about Northern Pass, a power line that would bring hydro power through NH to Massachusetts, but little mention of the clearcutting and heavy-duty development, often in pristine alpine environments, caused by wind towers. And their power is so uselessly intermittent---usually providing NOTHING to feed air conditioner demand on a hot/hazy/humid day---that they require the construction of huge gas-from-fracking power plants in the valley below. If you want to do something for the environment, get serious about supporting a real gas tax, and a big tax on jet fuel and fuels used to heat under-insulated homes. Wind Energy is a cop out.

I absolutely love this article. It shows just how the USA tries to manipulate people into going against wind energy on the false grounds of caring for birds. Again, fantastic article.

And humans kill 17 billion animals annually.

May I ask a BIG favor of people following this thread? I know there are some differences of opinion but this is something everyone can get behind, and perhaps publicize in other social media.

SunEdison has a wind farm on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Over a 20-year span, they are allowed to kill 11 highly-endangered endemic Hawaiian hoary bats, or ʻ ōpe ʻ ape ʻ a (Lasiurus semotus). SunEdison is now asking the Hawaiʻi State Department of Land and Natural Resources for permission to up that number to 62 because in just four years they have killed 19 bats. Statewide, wind farms have already killed 146 bats in 6-7 years out of the 187 they are allowed to kill in 20 years. The response is ALWAYS going to be a request to up the kill number, of course.

SunEdison is proposing to spend more money on habitat conservation, but the reality is that almost nothing is known about the habitat and reproduction of these endemic bats. They just do not know enough to mitigate. The industry puff-piece in the local paper is "State might let wind farm kill more bats," Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 2/24/17 - just in case you want to look it up.

As you might already know, Hawaiʻi has more endangered and extinct species than any other place on Earth.

Would you please submit your comments to this DLNR official: Glenn.M.Metzler@hawaii.gov. The deadline for comments is March 28. Mahalo!

It's the type of bird being killed by windturbines. Housecats aren't killing large birds like the woodpeckers whose population is down & they're the main predator of the spruce beetle who're now devasting forests. A true environmental disaster being created by environmentalists. Admit you're wrong before it's too late & millions upon millions of acres of ecosystem are gone.

The spruce bud and pine beetles are opportunistic and are eating trees that are weakened by drought caused by climate change.

my cats never leave the house, to argue they kill more birds is non sequitur these are not
https://www.thenewamerican....
http://www.akdart.com/wind....
http://www.newsweek.com/wha...
http://www.nationalreview.c...

There are probably a few more cats than wind turbines.

just a few. And there are just a few more houses and buildings worldwide than wind turbines.

Oh please, 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion bird deaths just from cats? So between natural causes, cars, windmills, buildings, oil spills and other birds of prey, that would add millions, or billions. Then there would not be any birds left!

Right, so forget about 300,000 birds dying because they are trying to save the earth. Of course that doesn't matter for the hundreds of thousands of birds who won't be around to reap the benefits. If an oil spill killed this many birds, would environmentalist be talking about the insignificant number it represents. Not to mention wind farms and solar plants are killing entire ecosystems, as animals flee the area which has a huge impact on everything from insects to plant life. Let's not even get into the amount of wind turbines and solar panels it would take to actually power a city. This is what happens when you force a change instead of letting it occur naturally. Right now, the problems outweigh the usefulness, but people love it because it is "green" energy... just disregard the bloodshed and the lack of actual energy being produced.

http://www.sciencealert.com...

Awesome, although I wouldn't qualify this as true evolution since it is a species mating with another species to make a third species. I have always thought of evolution as confined within one species. Like if a baby cow was born with a mutation and grew up to mate with other cows, and all of those offspring also had the mutation. That would be true evolution in my eyes, but this is still cool.

This article total BS. You haven't fooled anyone Michael Graham Richard.

Can you prove that it is total BS? Because there are many studies out there showing he is spot on.

First, I have an indoor cat. I do however have a hard time thinking that cats kill 2.4 billion birds in the USA every year. I would think most cats reside in urban and suburbs. It seems like if this data is correct, most of us would be stepping on or over bird carcasses on a daily basis. I walk 20 miles a week in and around my city of 70k population, and very rarely see one?

Wind mills kill birds because partly the birds brain is not wired to see motion that way.

The solution is to make the blade visible to the birds. If the bird sees it- they will avoid it.

why not a federal government program to retrain birds, i am sure there are a lot of bird brain Lefties that would apply for that grant...actually after a friend died his wife had to sell the house and property, she had this bad habit of feeding feral cats and lo and behold they reproduced...we went in and...you know hunted them out of existence....don't go there i own 4 dogs, 2 cats and three parrots...my cats never leave the house and outside i feed the birds twice a day...i actually have a dole of doves that come in at feeding time my neighbors say it looks like Hitchcock's movie The Birds