While not much gets past WUWT, this story from Portugal has only recently gotten some press, well after its posting in March, and I think it warrants attention here. While I don’t know much about horses, I’ve known several people who do, so I do know that just because a horse will let you ride it, it may look for a low hanging branch to walk under to scrape you off.
Not surprisingly, I had never heard of “Acquired flexural deformity of the distal interphalangeal joint,” but I came across a web page, Can Wind Turbines Cause Developmental Deformities In Horses? about a stud farm where horses developed downward pointing front hooves after several wind turbines were built nearby.
If I were a horse, I would not want my feet to look like the one on the right:
No other changes in rearing the Lusitano horses (a famous Portuguese horse breed that I never heard of) were known. In the ensuing investigation, “two of the affected foals were placed in a pasture away from the initial one and two others were admitted at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Lisbon. In those animals, except for one that had to be euthanized for humane reasons, an improvement was observed on their condition, with partial recovery of the deformity.”
The stud farm was studied as part of a masters thesis by Teresa Margarida Pereira Costa e Curto and it surmised:
Cellular Mechanotransduction is the mechanism by which cells convert mechanical signals into biochemical responses. Based on the mechanical effects on cells it was proposed in this research project that the ground vibrations were responsible for a increased bone growth which was not accompanied by the muscle-tendon unit growth leading to the development of these flexural deformities.
That sounds reasonable to me, I know that stressing human bones increases their calcium uptake, and I wouldn’t be surprised that something like that could affect feet in other animals.
The wind turbines are obvious prime suspect, they were built nearby:
So, WUWT readers who actually know something about horses, have you heard of this case or similar cases at other farms with new wind turbines? Or, if you live near wind farms that are near farms with horses, cattle, etc, have they had problems like this?
This is just one study, involving one farm and not very many horses, clearly more research is warranted. If it’s confirmed, it would be interesting to know if other animals are susceptible to a similar problem.
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I’m no expert, but have been present some yrs ago when a vet examined a 10wo foal that had developed this condition. It can be caused by stress, or rather certain behaviors associated with stress (stamping, pacing back n forth in a confined area etc.) It can be ca\used by a dietary deficiency during a period of increased growth, or excessive exercise on hard ground during similar growth phases.
The satellite picture indicates thin topsoil over limestone or sandy subsoil/substrate, I would be inclined to check rainfall statistics for the area to rule out ground hardness as a prime suspect too.
CAN YOU HELP: In our locality there is a plan to build some turbines near a stud (200m away) where highly strung race horses are bred and broken in. The owners of the stud are looking for evidence of how horses will be disturbed by the presence of these moving vibrating structures. Can anyone help?
My understanding is that horses temperaments are very variable, some horses can be placid, others are very highly strung and easily spooked. Generally children’s ponies are bred to be placid, but Arabian bloodlines are much more temperamental and less predictable
The owner of the stud break in the young horses which is a very dangerous job, so they need somewhere quiet to do this work. Any links are very useful
You might also want to lookup the paper below. It has a lot more detail and actually also discusses the impact of low frequency noise on the humans living on the farm
http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2010-Denmark-Wind-turbines-Lyon-follow-up.pdf
Greg whines:
September 27, 2013 at 1:19 am
Gareth Phillips says:
Seeing there is general agreement that the horse hoof / wind turbine study is complete tosh, I thought it may be useful to also put the bird chopper idea into perspective with some mortality figures. It may upset the alarmists, but it’s useful info.
===
Thank you Gareth. So to all those who have suddenly and conveniently become bird preservation advocates and unbearably concerned with the longevity of bats:
please cover all your windows with sticky tape and stop driving , or shut the hell up about “bird-choppers”.
Gareth responds.
Unlike yourself Greg I have been a member of the RSPB for many years and try and check out the evidence before I shoot my mouth off. Windows are a problem, but you don’t hear me continually whining about windows and how they should be banned due to Bird deaths. My point is to keep things in perspective, you can’t moan about bird deaths from wind turbines while ignoring other much more serious causes. Otherwise the word ‘hypocrisy’ springs to mind. If you don’t like wind turbines state valid reasons, don’t fantasise.
Kadaka Qoutes
According to an estimate published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in March almost 600,000 birds are killed by wind farms in America each year, including over 80,000 raptors such as hawks and falcons and eagles (Wildlife Society). Even more bats die as their lungs are inverted by the negative pressures generated behind the 170 mile-per-hour spinning blades.
Gareth responds
I’m prepared to accept those figures, seems reasonable. But my point is, how does that compare with other causes of bird mortality? Using bird deaths as a reason to stop wind turbines just does not add up unless you also say something about the other much greater causes of bird and bat mortality.
This is a well known problem. Especially in white horses, especially in those with small populations, such as Lusitanos, where the gene pool is now inadequate to maintain maximum strength without outcrossing.
Contrast, my horse’s stud farm regularly introduce ‘new blood’ as most of the horses end up being related otherwise, with the ensuing duplication of genetic material. OK if the genes are good and adequate checks are done. A potential disaster if allowed to run amok.
Contracted tendons is part of ‘white foal syndrome’. It is hushed up by breeders for fear that no-one will buy their horses. It is genetic and serious.
14th International Meeting on Low Frequency Noise and Vibration and its Control, Aalborg. 9 – 11 June 2010
Journal of Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/36t6161651053v7t/
Where’s the WWF, where are the concerned environmentalists? Why aren’t they calling for a ban? It’s all for the grandchildren.
The same wind park (Joguinho II) was involved in several judicial events, that led to several of the wind turbines being stopped some years ago. The reason was a great impact on the family health, especially in their younger children (in Portuguese):
http://ecotretas.blogspot.pt/2011/07/ruido-das-eolicas.html
I’m with most people here. Yes wind farms are a total fraud, kill birds and bats and make life unbearable for people who are forced to live near them. But they don’t cause deformed horses to be born.
And anyone who uses that argument will damage the real arguments against them.
I see that many of the people posting comments on the site are rubbishing the idea but I would suggest we just don’t know what the effect of infra-sound would have on a developing foetus, we know it causes vibrations in the body. Does this effect the development of the foetus? If so I’m sure no one has done any work on it, and what effect could it have on human or animal foetus.
Gareth Phillips says:
September 27, 2013 at 2:01 am
“I have been a member of the RSPB for many years and try and check out the evidence before I shoot my mouth off. ”
I wonder if the RSPB have issued a correction to the emphatic statement they made to the BBC’s QI (and which was duly read out in stentorian tones by Stephen Fry) that NO birds at all are killed by wind turbines. This statement was made some time ago but was well after considerable evidence had already emerged from Spain, the US and elsewhere so either they were more ignorant than the average blog reader who isn’t particularly interested in birds or lying.
This edition repeats for all eternity on the Dave channel by the way.
In unrelated news the RSPB makes a considerable amount of money from locating wind turbines on their land.
“… In those animals, except for one that had to be euthanized for humane reasons, an improvement was observed on their condition…”
The other horses got the message.
Here’s another possibility: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929320.600-the-knockout-enigma-how-your-mechanical-brain-works.html?full=true
Infrasound seems like a reasonable candidate.
It’s funny how the bat hater wind turbine lovers here assure us that there’s no problem at all for bats and even go so far as to list unsourced, probably made up numbers showing us no bats at all are harmed.
And one of the bat haters has this to say:
Greg says:
“Thank you Gareth. So to all those who have suddenly and conveniently become bird preservation advocates and unbearably concerned with the longevity of bats:
please cover all your windows with sticky tape and stop driving , or shut the hell up about “bird-choppers”.”
Greg, for your information – I don’t know if you ever saw a bat or had it flying through your bedroom, I have – bats have no problem at all avoiding collisions with windows, as they have echo location.
Please tell your wind turbine lobbyist boss that he needs to send better informed trolls.
“Unlike yourself Greg I have been a member of the RSPB for many years and try and check out the evidence before I shoot my mouth off. Windows are a problem, but you don’t hear me continually whining about windows and how they should be banned due to Bird deaths. My point is to keep things in perspective, you can’t moan about bird deaths from wind turbines while ignoring other much more serious causes. Otherwise the word ‘hypocrisy’ springs to mind. If you don’t like wind turbines state valid reasons, don’t fantasise.”
I recently cancelled my RSPB membership after 40 years of continuous membership after hearing they are putting wind turbines up on their nature reserves. It seems to me that this is a one sided political gesture by charity which is supposed to represent the need of birds and bird watchers first.
I agree cats are bigger killers of birds, but cats do not kill raptors and are kept away from RSPB nature reserves. I did read that in the US they have put turbines on the mountainsides where Condors are being conserved, and they have been a problem.
I think worrying about the effect of turbines on bird life is valid and should be included as one of the reasons for opposing their construction, especially in areas where their are rare migratory birds flying through, or resident populations of rare raptors.
Friends:
Windfarms are expensive, polluting, environmentally damaging bird swatters that only generate electricity for some of the time and never generate electricity useful to an electricity grid at any time.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
All subsidies for windfarms should be removed, and the owners of land covered by closed windfarms should be required to return that land to its pristine state at their expense.
The bones of horses are not relevant to any of that.
Richard
I agree. Animal behavior is affected by quite subtle things. My favorite was a group of cows who were mysteriously off their milk. The cause: a small voltage between the water trough and the floor. The cows had quit drinking as much.
If you touch the water trough, you can’t feel a shock but it really affects the cows. I wouldn’t discount the possibility that the horses are being affected by the windmills.
I haven’t read all of the comments but many are rubbishing what is suggested, namely that ultrasound vibrations from wind turbines have stimulated excess bone growth in advance of tendon/ligament growth. They are wrong to do so.
Ultrasound in the 0.5mhz range is used to stimulate bone growth / healing and numerous studies refer to this (try a google search for “ultrasound 0.5mhz effects on bone”.)
Studies in the UK “Microseismic and infrasound monitoring of low frequency noise and vibration from windfarms” by the Applied and Environmental Geophysics Research Group at Keele University found that the 0.5mhz range not only travelled significant distances through the ground but increased in amplitude with wind speed. They concluded it was related to the wind turbines.
Consequently it must be concluded that there is a potential for this to encourage excess bone growth in rapidly growing bone tissue which is subjected to 0.5mhz ultrasound stimulation through the ground as was the case with these foals.
I have kept horse for well over half a century and bred a few over the years. Despite one commentator stating this is common in horses it is not something I have ever come across or heard of as being anything other than exceptionally rare and unusual.
It is notable that the tibio-tarsal joint, the tarsus, tallus and in fact all the bones in the distal limb are enlarged and more robust and radio-opaque. There is clearly a biomechanical response to the altered posture. In the developmentally responsive young foal the tip-toe posture is placing increased mechanical loads on all the bones of the foot and hock, and there is an anabolic response in increased bone. The mechanotransduction – that is – the mechanism by which bone senses and responds to an altered mechanical loading environment by increased bone formation / decreased resorption, is currently attributed to the network of osteocye cells which live in small lacunae (little “caves” inside bone) linked by a dense submicron network of “cannalicula” connecting tubes. These cannaculiculae transmit neur-endocrine and cytokine signals. The bone is thus aware of its mechanical environment and, with appropriate stimulus, responds.
The evidence here is of course only anecdotal, more data would be needed to show a real causation by wind turbines. A psycological stress and resultant behavioural response to some aspect of the turbines might be plausible.
Old England says:
September 27, 2013 at 3:18 am
I haven’t read all of the comments but many are rubbishing what is suggested, namely that ultrasound vibrations from wind turbines have stimulated excess bone growth in advance of tendon/ligament growth. They are wrong to do so.
Ultrasound in the 0.5mhz range is used to stimulate bone growth / healing and numerous studies refer to this (try a google search for “ultrasound 0.5mhz effects on bone”.)
I guess you’re referring to Clinton Rubin and his vibrational bone response (magic frequency) hypothesis. He is even trying to commercialise this and having old folks with osteoporosis stand on vibrating platforms to boost bone growth. Kind of reminds me of a scene from the recent film “The Internship” with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan.
the network of osteocye cells
I meant “osteocyte”.
Phlogiston says:
“I guess you’re referring to Clinton Rubin and his vibrational bone response (magic frequency) hypothesis. He is even trying to commercialise this and having old folks with osteoporosis stand on vibrating platforms to boost bone growth. Kind of reminds me of a scene from the recent film “The Internship” with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan”/
No – never heard of either, but originally came across it’s use when consultant orthopaedic surgeons suggested it to help healing of my son’s broken phalanges (rugby injury). Numerous peer-reviewed research papers have been published – perhaps you might like to look at them through, as I suggested, a google search.
Old England says:
September 27, 2013 at 3:49 am
I was not trying to disparage the bone vibrational response despite my light-hearted reference, it clearly occurs. I used to work in the same lab as Clinton Rubin. I know the literature on this.
Berényi Péter says:
> … wind turbines are unbelievably noisy at frequencies below 0.1 Hz.
Unbelievably, yes. That’s a whole 10 seconds from one non-event to another. Imagine yourself on a platform that goes up and down 0.1 micron once every 10 seconds. Scary!
The whole “infrasound” thing and how we need to be open-minded about it has been going on for generations, since the end of the 19th century. The reason we are asked to be open-minded is because not was was there any evidence presented to support any of the claims made.
If you believe in infrasound breaking horses’ legs, don’t keep horses anywhere near a sea shore and don’t play music anywhere near them.
The only plausible connection between oscillations (of any kind, not just sound) in the lower frequency range (several Hz) and animal health is where they resonate with brain rhythms — and for that they have to be strong enough for one to sense them without super-sensitive accelerometers and laser interferometers. We do see epileptics have fits from flicker or from observing a regular pattern, like tiles on the floor. We have never seen anybody develop a bone deformity because of this.
@Old England: ultrasound in air dissipates very quickly. In any is produced by a turbine, it will drown in thermal noise within metres from the source. I’ll give it 10-20 metres in the longwave range (20-30kHz); for 1MHz, it will be a fraction of a millimetre.
For the bone stimulation to which you are refferning to work, the ultrasound needs to be of a destructive magnitude. Also note that in this case, it travels in a relatively non-lossy fluid from a transducer in contact with it, not in air.