Towers threaten birds, researchers say

There are now more tall towers than ever before especially for cellular phone and digital television transmission.

September 29, 1999
Web posted at: 4:31 p.m. EDT (2031 GMT)

There are now more tall towers than ever before especially for cellular phone and digital television transmission. A growing number of cell-phone towers and digital television antennas are posing an increasing threat to millions of migratory birds, according to ornithologists at Cornell University. Scientists estimate that towers kill 4 million birds in the eastern United States annually.

Although birds have been hitting structures in North America for at least 100 years, there are now more tall towers than ever before especially for cellular phone and digital television transmission.

"The more towers, the more dead birds," said Bill Evans, a consulting ornithologist for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. "All of a sudden, there are a lot more towers being constructed, and we realized there has been very little research on their effects on birds." To fill the void, he helped organize the first scientific conference on avian mortality at communications towers.

"Many species face degraded habitats at both ends of their migration flights and the thousands of towers are a new threat along the way," said Evans.

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission processes approximately 70,000 applications each year for new and co-located wireless, mass media, international and experimental radio facilities, according to Ava Holly Berland, spokesperson for the FCC Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C. That doesn't count the annual 120,000 applications for renewal of existing licenses. Co-location saves construction costs and is encouraged but not required by the agency's environmental rules, she says.

The Cornell meeting, which took place in August in Ithaca, N.Y., brought together biologists from government and academia, environmentalists, representatives of the FCC, the National Association of Broadcasters and the wireless communications industry. While no consensus was reached, the scientists were able to trade information, theories and possible fixes for the problem: