Killer development of birds

1999/10/17 Kortabarria Olabarria, Beñardo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

Ornithologists are not satisfied with the new communicative devices. Electric towers, telecommunications towers, and repeaters are deadly for millions of birds in the world. However, the deaths are not repeated throughout the year. For many birds, migration can be the last journey of their lives. During the dark nights, in which the clouds are collected, the thunder is hit and the storm explodes, many birds mix the lights of the communication towers with the light of the Moon. In this case, many birds will collide with the communication towers and die as a result of the blow, while many others will turn around the light, totally lost, in danger of meeting the cables that sustain the towers standing. Despite escaping this danger, in the best of cases, the birds fall to the ground and are exhausted.

In developed countries this type of events are not rare, if it is almost a century and occur. In any case, the problem and risks for birds have increased in recent times. Mobile telephony is the culprit. In fact, in recent years mobile communications systems have grown and increased dramatically. There are more and more people with mobile phone and towers with repeater so that these mobile phones receive the signal that is sent have been put everywhere. Without them, today communication would be impossible. The future trend, far from correcting the problem, will worsen, as mobile phones and future digital satellite TVs necessarily need towers and repeaters to work.

The above mentioned may seem like a literature, a blown question, but there are data that can be used to contrast and reinforce. A group of ornithologists from the American organization Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has conducted an exhaustive research. Although the research carried out by ornithologists is limited to the US, it can help to understand the panorama of the rest of countries. The fact is that every year, in the United States, 4 million birds die after colliding with man-made objects. If the data is moved to the rest of the world, especially to developed countries, researchers at Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology believe that the number of birds dying each year by colliding with towers or repeaters can exceed 100 million.

If the present cannot begin to sing every morning, for the birds the future is no better, since for this type of bites the developed countries will not leave aside the projects that already have approved for the development. For example, in the next decade Americans intend to build a thousand megadorres, towers over 300 meters long. If the situations described above are often repeated, many of them will become traps for birds. A suggestive event of last year can help to understand the scope of the above-mentioned quantities. History has taken place in the North American state of Kansas, on January 22, 1998. The day woke up cold, full of cold and clouds. Soon after the snow began. The birds began to seek refuge and seeing the red light between the fog and the snowflakes were filled with joy. A few hours the sun and the wind lifted the clouds and the snow storm and carried them away. The show was unfortunate, the remains of 10,000 birds were on the ground, corpses. The red light that gave them protection was a big trap for birds, who attacked the huge television tower. If around a television tower 10,000 birds can die, in millions of metal structures spread all over the world, how many can die? Who knows, but little.

The truth is that no one, not even ornithologists, really knows how many birds kill every year. Cornell's have launched 100 million, but it is only an estimate, a data without great bases. And it is that in the small villages, in the hidden corners, in the least developed countries, in the mountains… the massacres that occur between the birds and the objects constructed by the man are not controlled. Often, even if you want to control, to get to isolated places, predators have done their own and no bodies appear, just feathers.

The investigations carried out so far do not leave much room for hope. It seems that when migration and bad weather coincide, massacres will be difficult to avoid, as the lights of the structures will remain confused. However, there is a certain decrease in the problem and biologists are doing it, although they do not make them too many cases. Biologists ask that the number of towers and structures be limited and that if they are installed they coordinate so that the exploitation is more efficient and can be used by more users. Other types of recommendations are also made, such as replacing conventional luminaires with other luminaires that produce quick flashes that scare away birds.

If the aforementioned measures were taken, the problem would be attenuated since the red lights and radio signals are able to hinder the system of notation of the birds. Radio signals especially affect birds, who lose the ability to follow the lines of the terrestrial geomagnetic field. These measures or others, it is a question of starting to work in the search of solutions and, also, soon, the songs of the birds, the dances of the swallows, etc., will have to enter the treasure of the memories.

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