By Vijay Jayaraj
By commissioning expensive and inefficient wind and solar electric generating facilities, India may have dug the grave of its own efforts to save the critically endangered great Indian bustard. Erected to avert a faux climate crisis, the so-called renewable machines and their attendant transmission lines are helping to drive one of Earth’s largest flying birds to the brink of extinction.
Avian aficionados such as myself have long bemoaned prioritizing wind and solar technologies at the expense of endangered species. Yet, the relentless push for needless climate solutions seems to ignore this as “green energy” installations and avian fatalities increase in tandem.
Though well documented, the issue of bird fatalities worldwide is frequently downplayed and, at times, even deemed a regrettable but essential consequence of the quasi-religious war against global warming.
As a master’s student at the University of East Anglia, U.K., I did a specialized research thesis on the collision-mortality of endangered bird species in Southern Portugal, which included kestrels, eagles, falcons, harriers and the European great bustard, which is a relative of the Indian bird. Numerous other species were affected as well.
Listed as Critically Endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the great Indian bustard stands more than 3 feet high and weighs more than 30 pounds.
The bird is endemic to the Thar desert region of West India. It has now become conclusive that wind and solar transmission lines in this region are driving their numbers very close to extinction in the wild.
In 2008, a survey estimated that there were only around 250 great Indian bustards in existence, limited to the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Fast forward to 2018, the count had dropped to 150, with 25 of these magnificent birds housed in the government’s captive breeding centers.
Prerna Singh Bindra, a wildlife conservationist and former member of the National Board for Wildlife, says, “In recent years, the death blow to the great Indian bustard has come from unexpected quarters — the expanse of wind farms and power transmission lines that crisscross its last remaining habitats … The question that needs to be asked is, how green is renewable energy when it leads to the extinction of a critically endangered species?”
If timely action is not taken, these grassland birds could be soon declared extinct, according to Indian biologists. The bustard’s habitat was greatly restricted by transmission lines belonging to wind turbines. This is a common problem worldwide. Collision mortality, loss of breeding and forage habitats, and impedance of migratory pathways are some of the main impacts of wind turbines.
It is not just the bustards. Over 100,000 birds of diverse species die as a result of electrocution from transmission lines connecting wind and solar to the grid, according to a Wildlife Institute of India report. The Supreme court of India, in a 2021 order, asked utility companies to install underground transmission lines and install markers to lessen hazards to birds. However, the companies continue to violate this order. Government interest in the case seems to be lacking, with insignificant funds allocated toward the issue and no proactive measures to assess bird populations or document changes in habitat.
While the country is very clear about ensuring continued use of fossil fuels to meet energy needs, the government’s delay in dismantling useless renewable energy projects is especially disappointing in light of their devastating effect on birds.
The arguments of “green” advocates that equate green energy infrastructure with house cats that also kill birds trivialize the issue. The feline at home is more likely a target than a predator of raptors and would rarely encounter aquatic species.
In this instance, the color of the climate alarmists’ favored machines is blood red, not green.
We should cite a source for this. Some may argue that hunting and/or loss of habitat is contributing to the bird’s decline.
Who says so?
This commentary was first published in American Thinker on February 11, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.
Photo credit: Parth Kansara, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Green prayer wheels kill bats as well. And the kind of birds windmills slaughter are not the little tweety birds cats kill.
I’m not sure cats kill many birds. They try, yes, but the birds can fly and so usually get away. We had a cat for years, and she never caught one. Mice, voles, and on one memorable occasion, a young rabbit which was was nearly as big as she was. The big clue was the feathers.
I had a dog, a Golden Retriever, in high school, that caught birds. She was fed outside, and I saw her stalking blackbirds. I never saw her catch one, but there were occaisonal piles of feathers.
Pointless informing WWF or Greenpeace.
They don’t give a rat’s a**e about anything living on the planet.
—
“If timely action is not taken, these grassland birds could be soon declared extinct”
And they will blame it on “Climate Change” !
In this case, climate change will be the cause.
If climastrologists hadn’t pushed the climate change farce with such vigour, we wouldn’t have unreliable wind turbines in the first place.
Everywhere Big Brother has taken over life no longer matters.
I would have thought by now there would be an authoritative group counting and regularly reporting on the carnage numbers of all species of creatures taken out by wind and solar.
From what they have done to the economies, energy failures in cold weather, destruction of agriculture,etc. I would say The Gang Green has caused multi-millions of human casualties to add to the, as yet, uncounted tallies. Crash test dummy Sri Lanka must have lost several million. This Climate Policy-Caused extermination was so successful that it is the plan for destruction of the global agriculture industry. Gates, Schwab and the other lefty billionaire eugenics at Davos are starting to get blowback, thankfully.
Everywhere Big Brother has taken over life no longer matters. But Gates, Schwab and the other at Davos are just puppets working for those behind the curtain who have been printing all that was needed to buy/corrupt the system.
If there is a “sixth mass extinction” then it’s due to renewables, nothing else.
and the renewables can be blamed on Mann and comrades- ergo, sixth mass extinction can be blamed on Mann and all the fools who adore him
Pardon my ignorance, but how do power lines kill birds? Do they fly into them — do they perch on them and get irradiated? Wind turbines, sure, but power lines?
Yes – They fly into them – I’ve seen it happen.
Perching on them does nothing.
You can see linesmen working live on HT lines in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YmFHAFYwmY&t=6s
As long as you don’t touch any other wire or ground you are safe.
Where I live they string large orange balls between pylons on the uppermost wire (the earth / lightning strike arrestor wire) – seem to alert birds to the fact that there is something there prompting them to look more carefully.
Birds can clearly see the wires but like human drivers can be inattentive and crash into things.
Also the insulation on high tension lines is only to protect from the weather, not “block” electricity. The voltage is high enough that actual contact between the lines is not required to complete a circuit. It can jump across an air gap.
Many raptors will perch on the highest thing around. They may land safely but when they spread their wings to take off the wing tips can get close enough to two lines to complete a circuit.
If I’m not mistaken, out west in the plains of the US, a perch is added to the top of the towers to give them a safe place to perch an take off away from the wires.
Thanks. I’ve seen plenty of birds on power lines, hundreds of them all sitting side by side, but those were probably the final distribution lines, relatively low voltage. I’ve also seen the orange balls and assumed they were for low altitude humans, especially helicopters.
Open to correction but, I think the orange balls also help in reducing the swing of the wires in a high wind so they don’t get close enough to each to complete a circuit.
It’s one thing to have a flock of swallows on the power line. But when you have a large wingspan bird like a swan or bustard there has to be very good separation between the cables. It’s the medium and lower voltage cables that provide the risk.
Who gives a crap about birds? Either they will evolve to fly around turbines and wires or they won’t. I don’t care which
Harrumph! Yes, yes, quite so Andrew. Those poor bustards will just have to suck it up. We have subsidies to collect, haven’t we?
Who gives a crap about cretinous non-humans like you.
You can inject what you like into your arm… nobody would care… not even your mother.
We already know what junk they teach at East Anglia and this confirms it. What planet is that place, and its students, actually on?
These bustard burds will be like Turkeys, Emus, Ostrich, Dodo, Penguin, Pheasants and even just domestic chickens
i.e. They will NOT be any great aviators, using their wings rarely and only to escape predators or get up into a roost at sunset
They will NOT be gliding around in the sky and getting in the way of windmills
It’s called habitat disruption. These grasslands are already threatened by farming and development. Putting in roads, transmission lines, wind turbines, and especially solar farms will take up even more of these marginal lands.
At least they could try to minimize the bird genocide:
“Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) are thought to not only improve wind energy harvested per square meter but also reduce bird deaths by reducing the special impact of the turbines on bird habitats. They also have blades that are located closer together and travel at the same linear and angular velocities, making every blade section more similarly apparent for birds to see. By better understanding how and what birds in flight can see visually, this project can create specific turbine design rules for maximizing avian turbine visual awareness and collision avoidance.”
Bird-Safe Wind Turbines | Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Not a meaningful reduction. So, irrelevant. Just more BIG WIND propaganda.
Get back to us when they start using them on mass, instead of the bird shedders !
VAWTs have been around for ages, but have you ever seen a major wind farm use them ?
Heck you could even put a metal grid around them..
… but they don’t !..
I’m calling PETA!
Of Newark??