Maybe the Whole Broadcasting Business is for the Birds

At the moment, I’m a “towering” inferno.  But this isn’t about the movie, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway aside. 

Instead, this is about the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) v. FCC, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  Seems that the FCC now feels that maybe ABC was right that the commission isn’t allowing for public comment on new tower structures or proposed modifications to existing ones.  So now we have the study, Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the Antenna Structure Registration Program.  Bureaucracy at its best.

If I can bottom-line you, the commission has acceded to the ABC that too many birds are being killed by communications towers.  The FCC has said wow, we didn’t realize the numbers were like this and we haven’t listened closely enough.  We’ll do more.

The key to all of this is the name of the organization…American Bird Conservancy.  Their concern is the anthropogenic [their word] demise of birds.  And, if they say towers are killing birds, it must be true.

I have been dealing with broadcast towers in one way or another since picking blackberries at the WSAI “Larry, Curly & Moe” tower site in 1957.  As a focus group of one, I can recall two bird incidents, neither of them there.  One was a pretty-well decomposed large bird about 50 yards (if memory serves me at all) from the base of a tower in Arlington Heights, IL.  That was about 20 years ago and I have no explanation.  Could have flown into the tower, who knows.  The tower’s gone.  Maybe a bunch of Canada Geese took it down in anger.

The other was at the base of a 12 foot satellite dish, about 3 years ago.  However, the collection of feathers near the base was directly attributable to Cricket, the station cat.   She did everything but burp to prove her ownership of the situation – and the remains.

So, really, one case.  Total number of towers I’ve had direct, multiple encounters with:  estimated at 40, from 100 feet AGL to 50 feet above Sears (Willis) Tower. I recall a number of birds’ remains on the roof of the 89th floor there but those were attributable to them flying into the windows of the 90th floor. 

Around the more common 450-500 foot structures, I’ve seen only the one mentioned above.  Now, stack this up against the other methods by which birds are harmed or killed.  Yes, I understand, every life has value.  But we do put limits on it – or there’d be no automobiles.  We’d outlaw them because of the significant life hazard they present.

Now, if you take all of this into account and compare it to the other causes, you have to scratch your head.  Why are we not clearly marking windows so that birds don’t fly into them?  Or fining people for letting their cats run free.

In fact the URS Group, Inc. study demonstrates that towers pose less than a 0.3 percent danger to birds as opposed to – standby – 41.9 percent from cats like Cricket.  Another 41.9 percent (amazing that the number’s the same for both) are attributable to buildings.

http://tinyurl.com/AvianMortality-RW  (Radio World synopsis)

http://tinyurl.com/MigratoryBirds-FinalPEA  (FCC press release)

http://tinyurl.com/The-Final-PEA  (The full-blown FCC release

Here’s my proposal:

• Outlaw Windex® and other glass cleaners
• All windows must use translucent rather than transparent glass
• Buildings over 7 stories high must have the word B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G spelled out vertically (one letter per window going down from the top) on each side of the building.  However, this may be altered to read “north side” when birds are flying south and “south side” when birds are flying north. I’m thinking they can read!  Then...

• All cats must have bells and, in addition, tail extensions consisting of small helium balloons tied to the tail through two feet of bright wide orange ribbon.  This will ensure that the ribbon is in the air, waving, as the cat stalks birds.
• All cats will be required to announce themselves with a “meow” of at least 110db at 1 meter.  Cats that cannot meet this loudness standard must be kept indoors
• All cats must be kept indoors during prime migratory seasons - and finally,

• All extremely high voltage power lines (responsible for 5.5 percent of bird casualties) must be coated with a repellent substance (hey, maybe it should smell like cats!) to prevent birds from lighting.

• Automobiles must be equipped with sensors which detect bird flight and employ an automatic avoidance system to protect the birds.  (Of course, when the system swerves to miss a pigeon and carries the car into a pedestrian, that’ll be another matter.)

Do all that, and I’ll gladly address the “estimated” 0.3 percent of bird tragedies supposedly brought about by towers.  By the way, if you followed the links, you saw that according to estimates, 0.3 percent is equal to 6.6 million avian miscreants.  That’s a lot of birds.  But if that’s only 0.3 percent, it means about 2.2 billion birds meet their maker by accident each year.  And of those, 921.8 million – OK, a billion – at the hands of the hands – or paws & jaws – of cats.

In case you think I’m being flip, cynical and a bit sarcastic, I have a hole card.  The American Bird Conversancy has received over a billion dollars in federal funding.  Hey, they brag about it.  Check it out.  That’s my money telling the commission that they didn’t get it right and I need to decrease that 0.3 percent.

If you’re planning a new tower after August of 2012, be ready to meet the rules. 

But there’s a better answer for broadcasters:  breed cats.  If we all had hundreds of cats, that’d drive the number of cat-related avian casualties sky high and, consequently, would result in a drop in the percentage of tower-related bird deaths.  Alternatively, build your next studio totally out of plate glass and keep it really clean.

I thought writing this would be cathartic.  But I’m still doing a burn.  Clients will be shelling out bucks for compliance studies to go along with the FAA, EPA, wetlands, and OSHA hoops that we jump through.

And for what?  Seems like a lot of money frittered away, especially if eight times as many birds are killed intentionally by hunters.  But I suppose it keeps the DC folk occupied, even though it appears wasteful. 

Now if you want to get your arms around all of the government waste associated with this, read the release (The-Final-PEA link above).  Then, at the end of the release, read all of the references cited, realizing that most of those were paid for with tax dollars, too.  There’s only one way to get through it all.  A little Wild Turkey.