On Wolfe Island, a nest of Short-eareds with five chicks was plowed under by
a farmer who had a turbine on his property. It has been widely surmised that
he did so because he thought it would affect his annual paycheck for leasing
space to the wind company. As far as I know he has not acknowledged doing so
but it happened only a week or so after pictures of the nest and its
location hit the media.
There is a note in the recent issue of the Kingston Field Naturalist's
journal, The Blue Bill, that has a number of discussions on wind power,
some of which regard Wolfe Island Wind Project, and another regarding a wind
farm siting that would be very deadly to birds on the Point Edward Peninsula
http://kingstonfieldnaturalists.org/bluebill/bb-jun11.pdf
I quote from page 35 of that document:
"Kurt Hennige's presentation of monitoring efforts of the Short-eared Owl -
carried out for decades by members of the Kingston Field Naturalists on
Wolfe and Amherst Islands - reached a different conclusion about the impact
of the Wolfe Island wind plant. Hennige's findings strongly suggest that the
distribution of Shorteared Owl on Wolfe Island has changed because of the
wind plant - they no longer occupy the area around the
turbines that have been their core wintering grounds for decades. The
Short-eared Owl, a species that has declined steadily over the past 40
years, is listed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in
Canada (COSEWIC) as "Special Concern".
--Bill E
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html
2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds
3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
