At this point in time, I feel the need to defend Dr Cindy Hull. I probably
know more about Cindy's research into Australian wind farm impacts than many
other people in the Birding-aus community, as a result of our respective
involvements in advising the King Island community on this topic earlier
this year. Cindy is respected as a scientist by her ornithological peers,
both in Australia and overseas. The research that she (and students that she
has supervised) have conducted into ecological impacts of operational
Australian (Tasmanian) wind farms follow rigorous scientific standards and
procedures, and are the only systematic and long-term studies of their kind
in Australia. I might remind everyone here that the results of these studies
have been published in peer-reviewed international scientific journals or as
published international conference proceedings, not as impartial company or
consultancy reports.
When addressing the King Island community about wind farms, Cindy showed
great integrity, honesty and openness about Australian and overseas
ornithological impacts of wind farms - an approach that went down extremely
well with the audience. At the same time Dr Hull has been critical of the
standard of some consultancy reports that have assessed potential impacts of
wind farms on bird and bat populations because of their impartiality and
lack of scientific rigour. Rather than being sceptical about Dr Hull's
motives, the Birding-aus community should be grateful that we have someone
like her involved in wind farm research. Mike Tarburton posted a title of
one of her papers in an earlier email. There is nothing wrong with debating
the results of any scientific study, that is an important aspect of science,
and by all means, let's have a relevant scientific debate about wind farms
on Birding-aus. But I invite people to read the paper that Mike has brought
to our attention (and there are other scientific papers too), rather than
being scientifically uninformed critics and sceptics.
Kind regards,
Stephen
Dr Stephen Ambrose
Ambrose Ecological Services Pty Ltd
Ryde NSW
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Denise
Goodfellow
Sent: Tuesday, 29 October 2013 7:55 PM
To: Gary Davidson; Birding Aus
Subject: Birds and windfarms
Not always. Brett Lane and I were consultants to a particular engineering
company on the Mt Todd Gold mine, north of Katherine, NT. We were always
going to tell the truth of what we found, and unhappy with some of the
company's actions, reported them. They lost the consultancy.
However, since then I've seen other PRs and am amazed at some of the guff
written. For example in one such report on Howard Springs near Darwin, one
excuse given for removing the monsoon forest trees edging the pool, was that
vegetation matter was responsible for the high bacterial count in the water.
When that didn't appear to hold up, the report stated that the vegetation
posed a danger to people. Perhaps they were afraid visitors would trip on a
branch or something.
Whatever, it seemed to fit the political motives of the day ie to refocus
the loss in water quality away from the tens of thousands of bores sunk
willy nilly thus dropping the water table by eight metres, to some other
cause.
Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
PO Box 71, Darwin River,
NT 0841
043 8650 835
PhD candidate, SCU
Vice-chair, Wildlife Tourism Australia
On 29/10/13 4:14 PM, "Gary Davidson" <> wrote:
> It is interesting to note that Dr Hull works for Hydro Tasmania. I'm
> not agreeing or disagreeing with her position, because I don't have
> the background, the knowledge, nor the evidence to do so. But I have
> noted in the past, that many of the scientists that try to downplay
> our influence on the environment, such as global warming and oil
> extraction, for example, are often employed by industry! Curious!
> Gary
>
>
>
> On Monday, October 28, 2013 10:18:38 PM, David Clark
> <> wrote:
>
> Interesting article, particularly in relation to the lack of data on
> other causes of bird deaths:
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/5046460?fb_a
> ction_id
> s=10202121490456956&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline
> &action_
> object_map=%5B1404414256460883%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D
> &action_
> ref_map=%5B%5D
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
