[BC] Birds and towers

[Jerry Mathis]

At the risk of igniting a war with the enviro-wackos, I'd like to say that
this proposed solution, to a VERY questionable problem in the first place,
is the biggest piece of junk science I've seen lately.

The problem with bird strikes is SUPPOSED to be worst at night. So, you hang
a few luminescent reflectors off the guy wires in a few places. This
triggers the appropriate response mechanism in all birds flying nearby:
"Danger! There is a tower with guy wires here! Don't fly in diagonally up or
down directions from these reflectors!"

Right!

Could it just possibly be that the reason the reflectors "work", in the
sense that no dead birds have been found under the towers, is that birds
aren't flying into the towers/guy wires in the FIRST place?

Where's the scientific, controlled test for this? I'd think you'd need two
identical towers, one with the reflectors and one without. See if there's
any difference in the dead bird count.

Jesus, has EVERYONE taken leave of their senses? We've got people being
thrown out of their houses because they lost their jobs and can't pay their
mortgage, people with no health insurance, our energy costs are sky-high, we
possibly may be bombed by North Korea and/or Iran, or gunned down by Mexican
drug lords, our Marines are being killed in Afghanistan in order to protect
civilians being held hostage by terrorists; and we've got idiots who are
worried about birds flying into towers.

What's happened to our sense of priorities?

/rant mode

--
Jerry Mathis

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Patrick Griffith, N0NNK / WPE9HVW <
AM-DXer at webtv.net> wrote:

> Interesting product. Has anyone tried using any of these devices? Could
> they be the solution to the millions of tragic bird deaths around
> towers?
> /////
> In 2006-2008 I was employed as a part-time engineer to assist with the
> relocation/rebuild of the 1510 4-tower transmitter site here in the
> Denver area. The new site was located on county owned property on the
> edge of the urban/suburban interface and had a lot of wildlife on it.
> The towers were not lighted. The county ordered some type of protection
> against bird strikes to be included in the project. The guy "wires" were
> entirely Phillystran with a black UV resistant cover. We incorporated
> what I believe was a beta test version of the devices you mentioned.
> Ours did not incorporate movement and I don't believe they glowed at
> night. They simply had orange and yellow fluorescent material on each
> side. They seemed to work well. With a lot of birds occupying the low
> level air space we found no evidence of bird strikes in the antenna
> field while I was there. And I frequently observed birds roosting on the
> towers.
>
> There are some photos of the devices at the 1510 installation on one of
> my web pages. To view them go to http://community.webtv.net/N0NNK/ and
> look for the link to the AM 1510 (KCKK) RELOCATION PROJECT.
>
> Patrick Griffith, CBT CBNT CRO
> Westminster CO
> http://community.webtv.net/AM-DXer/
> http://community.webtv.net/N0NNK/
>