[TowerTalk] Birds

[Jim Idelson]

The Boston Globe had front page story on the bird/tower study. The article made 
it clear that the problem is associated only with LIGHTED towers. Apparently, 
these bird disasters occur at night, only near lighted towers. The article goes 
on to explain that the birds' navigation systems attract them to lights when 
flying at night. The study seems to indicate that towers lighted with 
continuously glowing red lights are particularly attractive to the birds. The 
Globe suggested that a solution might be to use more white strobe lights 
instead of the red incandescent lights, since it appears that the strobes are 
less attractive to the birds. I would suggest that the empirical evidence in 
amateur radio tower situations [no bird deaths] argues strongly in favor of the 
idea that lighted towers are the problem - and that amateur radio towers are, 
in fact, 'bird friendly.'

Please be careful in your responses to these kinds of studies. We need to 
listen carefully to research that is well-designed - even if it works against 
our objectives in some ways. If we can contribute to a better environment by 
helping to solve this problem [and others], we will again prove our value as an 
important and relevant national resource.

Jim K1IR

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