Tag Archives: Pile driving

Whirling ‘Triffids’ are now cluttering our coastlines

For years now, subsidised wind energy investors have been razing ridgelines, felling forests, and slicing birds, bats, and insects. But neighbours and nature-lovers are fighting back. So now the wind speculators race for off-shore space in shallow seas. ‘The Day of the Triffids’ is coming for coastal communities as these towers of whirling knives accelerate their invasion of shallow coastal waters. They pose a lethal danger to sea birds – beheading or de-winging pelicans and petrels, seagulls and sea eagles, gannets and grebes, kites and gliders. They also endanger coastal shipping, barges, helicopters, fishermen, and tourists. And the noise pollution from pile driving and turbine whine is affecting whales and seals. >click to read< 15:22

Euro invasion! “Ørsted is ready to mobilize.” – Town Trustees urge Ørsted to get fisheries studies underway immediately

Members of the East Hampton Town Trustees this week said that South Fork Wind Farm developer Ørsted needs to get fish population surveys started immediately, even though the actual proposal will not be finalized until later this spring, so as to be able to capture the full two seasons worth of data demanded by a fisheries study mandated in state approvals for the project. As one of the agreed-to conditions,,, Trustee John Aldred said that he and the Trustees attorneys, blah blah blah, blah blah blah,,, “I don’t want to be a defender of Ørsted, but,,, lol! >click to read< 13:11

Pile driving for constructing offshore wind turbine supports alters feeding behaviors of longfin squid

With the offshore wind industry expanding in the United States and elsewhere, a new study raises questions about how the noise from impact pile driving to install turbine supports can affect feeding behaviors of longfin squid, a commercially and ecologically important cephalopod.,, The study addressed short-term impacts to squid feeding behavior and noted that future research should look at longer exposures to noise and field work with  free-swimming squid. In particular, the study found that rates of anti-predator behaviors were similar when subjected to recordings of piledriving whether the squid was hunting at the start of the noise, suggesting that the noise diverted squid attention from a feeding task toward predator defense. >click to read< 14:13

‘Irreversible losses’: Wildlife expert fears for North Sea habitat – The North Sea off Suffolk could be facing “irreversible wildlife losses” because of the impact on its environment of the growing number of windfarms. >click to read<