Thread: Death by Solar Farm? Multiple Species of Birds Killed, ‘Entire Food Chains’ Disrupted

Death by Solar Farm? Multiple Species of Birds Killed, ‘Entire Food Chains’ Disrupted

Mike Miller
04/12/2014




Perhaps, other than the various scandals that have plagued the Obama administration, no one word evokes a more negative response among Obama’s detractors than “Solyndra.” Solyndra has come to represent the billions of taxpayer dollars lost on Obama’s quixotic quest to drag America away from fossil fuels – and push it toward “renewable” energy.

Now, a new report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that solar farms in California are killing multiple species of birds and disrupting entire food chains.
After a two-year study of three solar farms in Southern California - Desert Sunlight, Genesis Solar and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System – Fish & Wildlife reports that 233 birds have been killed from 71 different species. The three main causes of death were:

1. Solar flux: Exposure to temperatures over 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Impact (or blunt force) trauma: The birds’ wings are rendered inoperable while flying, causing them to crash into the ground. Birds that do not die are often injured badly enough to make them vulnerable to predators.

3. Predators: When a bird’s wings are singed and it can not fly, it loses its primary means of defense against animals like foxes and coyotes.

Hummingbirds, swifts, swallows, doves, hawks, finches, warblers and owls were just some of the dead birds found at the solar facilities’ “equal opportunity” mortality hazards.

The study also found that injured or dead birds attract insects and other predators to the area, which are in turn vulnerable to injury or death, resulting in the disruption of entire food chains:

In one instance, researchers found “hundreds upon hundreds” of butterfly carcasses (including Monarchs).

The insects were attracted to the light from the solar farms, which in turn attracted birds and perpetuated a cycle of death and injury.

One can only imagine the outcry on the left were the solar farms in this study to have been oil fields. Then again, what’s a few hundred lousy birds in pursuit of “renewable” energy?

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/04/1289...ins-disrupted/