[BC] FCC Bird ruling

[Tom Taggart]

1. Guy Wires: About a mile from us is a large island in the
Ohio River, which is designated as wildlife refuge.  It is
covered with grapevines.  Every fall flocks of starlings
(yes, they are migratory birds, though not necessarily
pretty ones) stop by on the island for a snack of wild
grapes. Then fly to my tower to roost on the guy wires while
they..uh..digest. Does wonders for the cars.

While there might be some argument that wide-spaced long guy
wires on very tall towers could constitute a hazard to
birds, it is ludicrous to argue that guy wires on shorter
towers are any kind of hazards. But we have folks on this
message board with tall towers, no-one seems to report
seeing thousands and thousands of dead birds.

Friend of mine was sitting in a doctors office, picked up an
Audubon magazine that claimed the reason no-one found all
these mythical dead birds is that the animals drag them off.
 Yea, right. The stray cats that used to hang around the
station would leave dead birds for us as presents, hoping to
get some surplus pepperoni or extra hamburger in return.
(New office manager was allergic, so we found homes for the
cats).

2. Flashing red lights.  Wonder what the FAA view is on
this?

3. Windmills. They are deadly to bats, which do fly at
night.  Bats rely on echo location to navigation, the slow
moving blades & resulting air turbulence screws this up.

4.  Regulators: Live to regulate. If they don't having
anything to regulate they create new crisis that demand
resolution. Which, as Richard Johnson observed, fits right
in to the mindset of the NIMBYs, who feel the need to
control everything in their environment.