Millions of birds could die from oilsands development

[Vanni Fucci]

Millions of birds could die from oilsands development: report

This should be explored more thoroughly, I'm thinking, as it could affect bird populations globally...not a happy thought...

 

[scratch]

VF,
Very interesting but disturbing story. I could not sopport the present method of extraction unless it was modified to protect the boreal forest and its so very important wetlands.

We as usual will have to see how this plays out.

regs
scratch

 

[JLM]

VF,
Very interesting but disturbing story. I could not sopport the present method of extraction unless it was modified to protect the boreal forest and its so very important wetlands.

We as usual will have to see how this plays out.

regs
scratch

Yep, I heard that on CBC radio last night, no doubt about it, if we are going to be technical we have to be technically and environmentally smart. Man is so clever in many ways but so dumb (or maybe greedy is a better word) in others. :-?

 

[scratch]

JLM,

IMO, sometimes we forget how capable we are.

regs
scratch

 

[#juan]

How many birds have already died in and around that permanent bloody oil slick called the tar sands. Is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or is it already millions. I worked on the first GCOS plant in Fort McMurray about forty years ago and it was a filthy, smelly, mess then.
The topic OP talks about a 166 million birds over forty years or so but the dire warnings have already been going on for forty years. Will it take another forty years before something is done about it.

 

[karrie]

What confuses me a little bit is the assertion that a loss of breeding habitat in the production area means NO breeding for those birds. Is it true that these birds will not breed if their area is spoiled? They're incapable of moving to the neighboring boreal to breed? I know that may sound like a dense question to some, but I'm honestly curious here.

 

[scratch]

Hey juan,

We must hope that those in the know will correct the situation. Yet can it be corrected now?

Hope and ingenuity are the outs here.

regards,
scratch

 

[#juan]

What confuses me a little bit is the assertion that a loss of breeding habitat in the production area means NO breeding for those birds. Is it true that these birds will not breed if their area is spoiled? They're incapable of moving to the neighboring boreal to breed? I know that may sound like a dense question to some, but I'm honestly curious here.

It is not the loss of the breeding ground. It is the poisoning of the breeding ground. If migrating birds even land on the toxic tailing ponds they die. These ponds cover square miles and they eventually leach into the watershed to poison other areas. Birds are not gifted with high intelligence. Nature has imprinted a path for them and they take that path even though it has been poisoned.

 

[karrie]

Okay... now I'm getting extra confused.

water birds are held off by boom canons, and that's been a pretty successful program as far as anyone can tell. The article addresses songbirds mainly, which, I've never seen land on ANY pond, let alone a tailing pond. It gives a high estimate of 100,000 that could die from tailings ponds, but, the millions lost it discusses is due to loss of habitat. That's what the article directly addresses as the issue, and that's what I'm curious about.

 

[karrie]

out of curiosity I went looking for some numbers I recall coming up during the wind power debate....

The following list shows the approximate number of U.S. annual bird deaths and the cause.

Death due to Collision:
300,000,000 - Buildings
200,000,000 - Free Roaming Cats
150,000,000 - Transmission and Distribution Lines
70,000,000 - Trucks and Autos
IfEnergy: Spinning Wind Turbines and Bird Death

That's not to say we should just clear cut or ignore an issue, just felt like seeing if it's much worse than any other human development.

 

[scratch]

Interesting karrie.

regards,
scratch

 

[Tonington]

It's population ecology. A square kilometer of breeding habitat only can support so many birds. If you decrease the size of the breeding habitat, you run into a couple problems. The first is competition for space. The second, is competition for resources. Add to that the accumulation of toxins in animals that migrate through those areas, and you have one helluva mess.

Not all birds are tolerant of colony conditions.

 

[karrie]

So when it comes to development T, how do the oilsands stack up against other things that cut into forest, do you know?

Not to keep harping on it, but, there are times when it seems like people just blindly hate it because that's the thing to do when the term 'oil' comes up. Compared to say building a new damn and flooding that forest to try to meet energy needs? Or urban sprawl eating up that much forest and belching tons of toxins, dumping sewage? New garbage dumps opening. A new Teflon manufacturing facility opening? I could go on about the many and varied ways we damage our environment without it ever hitting the news. We're damn good at it. And in the end it seems like (while don't get me wrong, we need to slow these damages), certain things end up the flavor of the day to bear the burden of society's somewhat selective environmentalist attempts.

 

[Tonington]

Well, look at your numbers, and the numbers from the report which says something like up to 76 million over 50 years.

So, that doesn't sound like much in comparison. What it is though, is one more stressor. Every time we add "just one more stressor", that's one step closer to impacts we can't even begin to prepare for, or project for. Ecological issues are complex, that's what has people concerned. It's another example of Type I and Type II statistical decision making errors.

When we look at some of their figures, we can see how the compounding factors add up. Here's how some boreal dependent species have fared already :

Species 40-year declines

Horned Grebe > 60%
Lesser Yellowlegs > 90%
Short-billed Dowitcher > 50%
Boreal Chickadee > 70%
Olive-sided Flycatcher > 70%
Bay-breasted Warbler > 70%
Blackpoll Warbler > 80%
Canada Warbler > 80%
Dark-eyed Junco > 40%
White-throated Sparrow > 30%
Evening Grosbeak > 70%
Rusty Blackbird > 90%
Rusty Blackbird > 90%​

 

[#juan]

Here is a site showing the tailing ponds among other things. I have flown over this area many times and it gets worse every time. They say they will replace the forest but in forty years it hasn't happened. It's a bloody moonscape.
Media Room: Photos | Minimizing Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands Development in Canada

 

[Trex]

out of curiosity I went looking for some numbers I recall coming up during the wind power debate....

The following list shows the approximate number of U.S. annual bird deaths and the cause.

Death due to Collision:
300,000,000 - Buildings
200,000,000 - Free Roaming Cats
150,000,000 - Transmission and Distribution Lines
70,000,000 - Trucks and Autos
IfEnergy: Spinning Wind Turbines and Bird Death

That's not to say we should just clear cut or ignore an issue, just felt like seeing if it's much worse than any other human development.

Karrie, Karrie, Karrie,

If you keep this up your gonna get nuked by the enviro-nazi's,
Surely you know about the politically correct "ask no question's" scorched earth policies of environmentalism.

Just by asking the questions means your an enemy of the planet.

Knowledge is a bad, bad thing Karrie.
At least that is what some of the enviro-nazi's believe.

Low flying dawn,dusk and evening moving bird species traveling in groups get ripped up by the wind turbines.
Check into the bat deaths caused by wind turbine's, it's brutal.
Check into the Scandinavian people rebelling, and refusing to allow new wind turbines.

Check into SAGD, heel and toe and other in-situ extraction techniques being used in the tar sands.
Brine aquifer utilization and re-injection, settling pit free systems.


Frankly Karrie I wouldn't worry about the Tar sands much.
Between new protectionist American "dirty oil" policies.
The Stelmach government's royalty programs.
Unstable $50 dollar a barrel oil prices.
A completely unstable Federal Government.

Anything that has not broken ground yet probably will not happen.
Close to $100 billion in investment has already been delayed or canceled.
Remember the "Alberta Advantage"?
You wont hear that these days.
All those up-grader and refinery jobs that were going to "keep high quality jobs and investment in Alberta"?
Pretty much all scrapped and move south into the USA.
Probably $100's of billions in investments all told.
But that's a good thing, right?

Just imagine if Obama bails out the Big 3 on condition all the jobs go to the USA.
Can you imagine ALL the Big 3 plants in Canada and the associated part suppliers closing.
But hey, at least Canada would not be building those polluting, CO2 producing vehicles.
And those huge energy sucking, wasteful, air fouling plants would be shut.
Its all good.
Isn't it?

Trex

 

[Vanni Fucci]

Karrie, Karrie, Karrie,

If you keep this up your gonna get nuked by the enviro-nazi's,
Surely you know about the politically correct "ask no question's" scorched earth policies of environmentalism.

Just by asking the questions means your an enemy of the planet.

Knowledge is a bad, bad thing Karrie.
At least that is what some of the enviro-nazi's believe.

Low flying dawn,dusk and evening moving bird species traveling in groups get ripped up by the wind turbines.
Check into the bat deaths caused by wind turbine's, it's brutal.
Check into the Scandinavian people rebelling, and refusing to allow new wind turbines.

Check into SAGD, heel and toe and other in-situ extraction techniques being used in the tar sands.
Brine aquifer utilization and re-injection, settling pit free systems.


Frankly Karrie I wouldn't worry about the Tar sands much.
Between new protectionist American "dirty oil" policies.
The Stelmach government's royalty programs.
Unstable $50 dollar a barrel oil prices.
A completely unstable Federal Government.

Anything that has not broken ground yet probably will not happen.
Close to $100 billion in investment has already been delayed or canceled.
Remember the "Alberta Advantage"?
You wont hear that these days.
All those up-grader and refinery jobs that were going to "keep high quality jobs and investment in Alberta"?
Pretty much all scrapped and move south into the USA.
Probably $100's of billions in investments all told.
But that's a good thing, right?

Just imagine if Obama bails out the Big 3 on condition all the jobs go to the USA.
Can you imagine ALL the Big 3 plants in Canada and the associated part suppliers closing.
But hey, at least Canada would not be building those polluting, CO2 producing vehicles.
And those huge energy sucking, wasteful, air fouling plants would be shut.
Its all good.
Isn't it?

Trex

Your absolutely right Trex, **** the birds...

In fact **** anything that doesn't directly reap a profit...because evidently, that's all that really matters anyway...

:idea:

I think I may have just converted to conservativism, because it's all so simple and easy to do...

With my new 'for profit only' outlook, I can go around and poison and kill any goddamn thing that doesn't make me money...cats, dogs, people???

Trees? Chop 'em down, they're just going to fall down by themselves one day, and one might fall on my brand new Hummer...

Fresh water? It would probably turn to poison by itself anyway right?

Protecting these things will hurt the bottom line, and we can't have that.

Hmm...children are an expense too...what to do, what to do?

I know, we can put them to work in camps...cheap labour looks good on the books...only the poor ones though, because rich kids are our future...

*psst, I didn't realy convert to conservativism, I was being fascetious*