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Re: Statement on Condors



Hi Carolinabirders,

I know that I'm usually the one who posts the political conservation 
action messages on the list and suggests that people write their 
congressmen and such. However, this one about the wind farm and the 
condors sounds a little fishy to me. I suppose that National Audubon is 
usually on the right track, but are windmills really a threat to condors? 
I could see the windmills being a threat to migrating landbirds, in the 
same way that radio towers are: lights that ward off aircraft disorient 
the night-flying birds such that they either crash into something or 
exhaust themselves and fall to the ground (see http://www.towerkill.com/ 
for more details on that). However, California Condors don't migrate, as 
far as I know. And when they do fly, like all other hawks, they fly 
during the day; I've never heard of any non-owl raptor flying at night. 
And during the day, the condors will be able to see the windmills from 
miles away and avoid them. So, other than general habitat destruction 
(and wind farms probably reduce that by reducing fossil fuel dependence 
far more than they increase it by occupying land), where is the threat to 
the condors? Does anyone out there know of studies showing raptor 
mortality around windmills? If so, please let me (and the rest of the 
list) know...

Thanks in advance,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/