A problem with a cage around the turbine, since the wind is so strong at that height, it can push and birds against the cage and they will be trapped until the wind dies down. Once they are pinned against the cage it will be hard for them to break free. If they managed to to fall below the cage, they can still have injuries such as broken wings.

Are we seriously suggesting to install solid metal cages the size of a small skyscraper over every wind turbine?

I heard eagles can be magnetic if you feed them mice that have lead poisoning, so just put a really strong magnet with the same polarity as the eagle on the wind turbine.

Lead is mostly non magnetic .... requiring extremely powerful neodymium magnets to get even the smallest fleck of lead to stick.

Perfect!

A hundred bids per year isn't the reason, it's most definitely staged by the atomic and fossile energy lobby. Any alternative energy source means smaller revenue for these, so they will work hard to point out such risks.

It is well-known that officials have little or no brain (especially green ones), so the outcome is not surprising.

Mankind is eradicating a hundred species every year (to be honest I don't know the number, but I'm probably close... possibly it's even worse!) and nobody cares. But kill a hundred birds, and there's an uproar.

What's most stunning is that many of our crimes to nature do not really matter as much as we think (while others matter much more). For example, we've not had any wolves in western Europe since the middle ages because we killed them all. Tragic, isn't it?

Wolves were dangerous predators, and nobody liked being attacked in the forest or losing sheep to them. No bad things happened when they were gone. Nowadays, wolves are re-immigrating from far away lands (Russia?) and the green nutters tell you that wolves are sooooooo important for nature and that they must be protected. There are a few hundred of them living here again already, and there's easily room for another 30,000 wolves in Germany alone (WTF, are you kidding me?). And wolves aren't dangerous predators either, they are such shy creatures.

Except when there's a thousand times more of them, they won't be so shy any more. Being attacked by wolves was not an uncommon fate in the middle ages. On the other hand, nature didn't notice at all when wolves were gone for the last 500 years. But now we have to forcefully bring them into the ecosystem again.

At the same time, we're killing billions of bees, which not only deliver the honey that we like so much, but also do the major part of pollination work. With bees going extinct (which sadly isn't a totally unlikely thing to happen as it looks now), we'll have a really serious problem.

But hey, a hundred birds per year matter.

Samoth, your example with wolves is terribly wrong. It does matter, and a lot.

By extinction of wolves, some species over-proliferated - that could result in large damage on nature. There was a reson why this didn't happen - humans took the role of wolves (actually it were gamekeepers).

Now some your assumptions are wrong - wolves aren't dangerous predators, and they never attack something that seems larger and stronger than them. Unless they are actually hungry, which is though caused by humans - severely limiting deers and extincing all the wild sheeps in nature, destroying their environemnt (basically all forests in western europe are artifical) - resulting in wolves attemp to adapt, that means hunt domesticated sheep (you see, this is actually caused by men), but they failed and got artifically extinct.

So let's assume they got extinct, we can't tell what damage will happen from that in like 1 000 years, can we? What if by extinction of wolves the whole ecosystem would collapse in few hundred or one thousand of years? This can happen by artifical extinction of species - 65.5 million years ago, the dinosaurs were extinct (first the large ones); this actually resulted in mammals taking major role on the planet and allowed humans to exist. By extincting some species you can actually collapse the ecosystem in some time (few hundred years, maybe thousand years, maybe a bit more), and possibly even most of the mammals could got extinct by that.

I don't get from what resource you get that attacking by wolf was a common fate in middle ages.From the resources I know, there were in Europe, between years 1580–1830, 3,272 people were killed by wolves (actually 1,961 by wolves, the rest died of rabid - which was "maybe or not" caused by wolves). This gives us 1 961 people during 300 years, it's approximately 8 people per year, while it is important to note that during that years the men were devastating wolves environment and changing natural forests to artifical ones.

In the US, CDC published in 2000 a study on dog bite-related fatalities that covered the years 1979-1998. The study found reports of 327 people killed by dogs over the 20-year period, which gives us around 15 people death per year. Which is by the way, twice as much.

So by your assumption - we should extinct dogs, because they are MORE dangerous than wolves, because they attack and kill more people than wolves did.

Ad for description of wolf as a dangerous creature - it really isn't, from my opinion it is as dangerous as horse or cow (which are also really dangerous, and by pissing off cow you are a dead man), but hey we don't want extinct cows or horses.

Note that the smaller the species are and the faster they reproduce, the sooner it will impact the nature. If you would remove 50% of insect species from our planet, most likely 90% of animals would get extinct too in short term, and unless new species appear, it is most probably that the rest probably too. Yes, we're so damn addicted to environment.

Of course in this case I agree that the birds are lobby, but nevertheless I'll stay behind the green guys, I hate when something has to be killed, I'm so damn pacifist (yet I love weapons (especially historical ones), isn't it a bit weird?).

By extinction of wolves, some species over-proliferated - that could result in large damage on nature. There was a reson why this didn't happen - humans took the role of wolves (actually it were gamekeepers).

That is however contrary to what I can observe. We have 1 game keeper within a county here, and around 100 nutters who enjoy killing animals and only feel like a real man when they cut open a deer's belly after killing it. My father in law is one of them. They pay around 5,000 to the gamekeeper (don't ask me where that money ends up!) for the right to shoot a deer. If there was an overpopulation, such prices couldn't be asked for.

The only observable difference that I have testify with no wolves around was that I could go home through the forest alone when I was a child, not having to fear anything. This is, as you can read in Grimm's tales, not something you could take for granted. You should consider that the image of a girl's grandmother (and the girl herself too) or the image of children being abandoned in the forest to be eaten by wolves doesn't come from nowhere. Of course the wolf is a narrative image in these stories, but why? Bears are much bigger and more aggressive, yet the wolf is evil monster that eats people. At least to the common man at Grimm's time, it clearly didn't seem entirely unrealistic being attacked by wolves.

we can't tell what damage will happen from that in like 1 000 years, can we?

The effects usually don't wait a thousand years to be come visible or even problematic. We have been planting rapeseed following the eco-fuel craze for around 5 years (massive deployment of an ozone killer to protect the environment, what a great idea!), and the population of wild boars has increased 20-fold during that time, which is a real problem. People now see wild boars devastating their front garden in the city, too. Apparently, rapeseed is a good nutrient.

There happened to be an interview with one crazed animal killer on TV just 2-3 days ago who was proud that their group shot 27 boars in one afternoon when 5 years ago they were lucky if they could get one.

So no, I don't expect such a thing to take 1,000 years to manifest. Now of course if wolves attacked boars, they'd have their cause, but they don't (and seeing the size of a boar's fangs, I can't blame them much for not attacking them).
Australia has much more of a sad experience with that, think of invasive/imported species. Those took few years before becoming serious problems, not millenia.

A comparison of death statistics of 16th-19th century and present day is very hard to do. During the 16th century, Europe was still recovering from the plague and had only about 1/4 of the population that the USA have today. There were considerably fewer wolves than there are dogs now, too. Also, fatalities due to dog bites nowadays are a vastly different thing. They'd most probably be some sort of attack dog owned by a pimp or neonazi, and commanded to attack (not that it takes much for these dogs to attack, anyway). Or, they'd be semi-dangerous dogs put in the baby-comes-after-dog position. As in, I can't understand why Butch killed my baby, he was always my favorite.

If you want to have a better image of what happens when there are many hungry dogs (dogs are just domestic wolves after all) around, look at Romania. Adult people are being attacked every day. There have been "pro genocide" manifestations for months. Kind of random googled link on that subject which gives some figures of 10,000 people attacked during 8 months.

That said, dogs (including attack dogs) have a large lobby, so they're unlikely to disappear any time soon. If it was me, I'd have attack dogs outlawed, and every one encountered shot on sight by the police (and a really painful fee for the owner). Just like gamekeepers are doing it in the forest. They'll shoot at off-leach dogs at sight.

aren't dangerous predators, and they never attack something that seems larger and stronger than them

Surely that's what pack hunters do. Being able to hunt much larger prey is the reason they attack in a pack. Besides, children and the elderly are considerably smaller and weaker than wolves (as are most women). Even for an adult man, an attacking wolf attack isn't precisely fun.

horse or cow (which are also really dangerous, and by pissing off cow you are a dead man

That's true, but pissing off a horse is hard, and pissing off a cow is a really tough job. Wolves will attack you on their own behalf, if you're alone and they're a pack. Horses do get malicious under bad treatment, but every animal does. For the most part, horses are docile, they're strict "flee" animals unless they're cornered or unless you threaten their offspring -- but again, these are "attack" situations for every animal. Cows (stallions a bit less so, admittedly) are docile too, unless you give them a strong reason not to be.

Of course in this case I agree that the birds are lobby, but nevertheless I'll stay behind the green guys, I hate when something has to be killed, I'm so damn pacifist (yet I love weapons (especially historical ones), isn't it a bit weird?).

Not so, it is perfectly alright being against killing things. Not weird in any way. I don't like killing things either, except, well... except when they interfere with my survival or with an urgent need.

Thing is, we have urgent needs such as needing to eat (no, please no silly discussion on living a vegetarian life). And then there are less urgent needs which we perceive as urgent nevertheless. For example, everybody needs to have a flipping iPhone and needs to use it all day long to post stuff on Facebook. Everyone has to have a TV. Even the window shades must be automatic and "smart", you can't be expected to pull them up by hand, it has to work over the internet, too. This costs a lot of energy.

The greens shout "No to atom! No to atom!" and assume that electricty comes out of the plug in the wall. And they all own an iPhone, a TV, and a playstation too. And they drive to the gas station (which is 200 meters away) in their 20 year old car to buy a sixpack. Surely not all do, but I know enough who really do that kind of thing. Did someone say fuel is still way too cheap? I agree.

Now reality has it that electriciy doesn't just come out of the plug in the wall by itself. So if you decide that you have this "need" and you don't want "teh atom" then you must, sady, also accept that you'll be killing a few animals with spinning rotors. Or, something else. Kill some fish instead. Or burn coal.

If people are not willing to back off a bit on their perceived needs (and there's no sign to this happening any time soon!) then you simply have no alternative.

Interesting fact - in order for the US to produce all it's electricity needs using Wind Power, they will have to cover over 25% of the land mass with over 27,000,000 wind turbines.

Interesting fact - in order for the US to produce all it's electricity needs using Wind Power, they will have to cover over 25% of the land mass with over 27,000,000 wind turbines.

Do you really not know how to do research on the internet or are you just trolling us? Everything that guy says is setting up straw men to knock down. There are too many variables to make that particular extrapolation viable (he's assuming every wind farm will be like the one he picked, forget basic geography). The conversation was never about converting to 100% Wind or 100% Solar, it's about combining the different energy sources since none of them alone are workable.

OOOOH i know!

We must install a device to create a constant extremely disturbing high volume continuous noise on top of each wind turbine. This will help the birds avoid the area. If this proves ineffective, an automatic laser distractor that fires rays at anything moving in the sky will do.