WaPo Hypes Concern Over Birds Killed by Windmills, Yet Housecats Kill 200x More Per Year

August 29th, 2011 1:02 PM

"Wind farms' turbines drawing static over bird kills" blared the page A4 headline in today's Washington Post.

"Advocates want oversight," added a subheadline. Yet it took until paragraph 11 out of 28 that Post staffer Darryl Fears noted that "power lines kill an estimated 10 million, and nearly 11 million are hit by automobiles," compared to just about 500,000 birds who die each year thanks to green energy-friendly windmills.


According to information from the American Bird Conservancy included in a graphic accompanying Fears's article, hundreds of millions of birds meet their demise thanks to domestic and feral cats.

In other words, felines are at least 200 times deadlier than manmade windmills, although it'd be patently ridiculous to call for federal regulation of cat ownership.

But never mind such silly things like facts.

Fears closed his article with an over-the-top fear-mongering quote by American Bird Conservancy's Robert Johns, who said he wants to ensure that "you don't have to look up one day and say, 'Hey, we've killed all the birds.'"