1 in 5 British mammals to be extinct

[Rodent + 1,424]

New study estimates 1 in 5 British mammals will be extinct (sometime... no date was given in article). Study cites various reasons depending on the species, one of which was wind turbines, which pose a threat to Nathusius' pipistrelle bats.

(aren't they cute??)

The article reads, in part:

"Using internationally agreed criteria to assess their risk of extinction, the study, commissioned by government agency Natural England, found that 12 out of 58 [of the studied species] were at risk, although a lack of data means the true figure is likely to be higher."

Hmm... I'll just let that sit for a minute.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5837277/One-five-British-mammal-species-extinct-decade.html

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

Windmills are bird and bat killers ?  True

Windmill are pushing birds and bats on the verge of extinction ?   No  !

 

Just compare the number of birds killed by windmills to other birdkillers...

Windmills kill 10000 less birds than... house cats !

 

And by the way fossil fuel energy is killing 15 x more birds than wind energy...

 

A 2009 study using US and European data on bird deaths estimated the number of birds killed per unit of power generated by wind, fossil fuel and nuclear power systems.

It concluded, "Wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh."

That's nearly 15 times more. From this, the author estimated that wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fuelled power plants 14.5 million.

In other words, for every one bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel powered plants killed 2,118 birds.

 

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-farms-bird-slayers-theyre-behere.html#jCp

 

 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I'm a bit confused. Why does the lack of data necessarily imply the actual situation is worse? Just because we're generally pessimists? I like bats. I also like cats. I'm conflicted.