Birds & Cape Wind

Among the resounding merits of Cape Wind will be its indirect impact on the whole Cape & Islands ecosystem, for it will reduce the amount of oil shipped through the Cape Cod Canal as the electricity grid absorbs its renewable megawatts and moth-balls the fossil fuel-driven power plants (polluting the air) at the hoof of the Cape.

While this will be a subtle, yet substantial and certain benefit to wildlife in the region, it is not an easy point for the myopic or those with entrenched interests to digest.

Although turbines kill birds — it’s impossible for a reasonable person to doubt this — there is a distinct lack of perspective on the bird impact from wind utilities.

For example, in 2006 we heard of the demise of nine white-tailed eagles in 10 months in the area of the Smola islands off the coast of Norway, of the reported reduction in sightings of breeding pairs there from 19 to one.

No one is asking whether these particular eagles have been dashed insensate into the waves by the murderous blades spinning those diabolical Vestas turbines or whether the 18 sets of white-tailed eagle mates have prudently decided to relocate. Perhaps white-tailed eagles are smarter than we credit them.

And what about the other birds in general being regularly killed by cars, or by buildings? Or those mowed out of the air by latter-day hunter-gatherers hidden in camouflage, benefited by bird-voice-spoofing technologies and loaded to their polyethylene waders with explosive cartridges? I’m lacking a count here from the bird-concerned.

Yes, Cape Wind — and the many many wind farms that are eventually implemented in its wake in and around the coastal waters of the United States — will most certainly have a positive net impact on birds.

Why? Because it will reduce the risk of this …

… a cormorant pulled from the May 2003 oil spill at Buzzards Bay.

So, indeed, you can imagine how tolerance for the bird issue in connection with Cape Wind is low among observers with even modest intelligence or the slightest sensitivity to common sense.