Folks who worry about this have an excellent outlet for their concerns: don’t have outdoor cats, and donate and work to spay and neuter feral outdoor cats. They are orders of magnitude more destructive to the bird population than wind turbines will ever be.

> Why are these questions always in wind turbine posts before anything els?

Because it's better to worry about it and try to mitigate at the beginning, than wait until there is too much inertia, sunken costs, vested interests and institutional pushback. Some things become too hard to fix if you start wrong.

Cos some people care about birds?

How does eating meat factor into this?

Because ostensibly global warming and climate change is of far more existential threat than localized turbines. Wind power could possibly save all birds, at the cost of some birds. It’s similar to when a self driving car gets into an accident - all hand wringing and no looking at broader statistics.

Most people who bring up birds wrt wind turbines don't care about birds, eg Donald Trump.

Well, if the meat is chicken or turkey...

If wind turbines were the number one bird killer, wouldn't figuring out the best color to paint the blades or other mitigation strategies be worth it?

There will always be a number one bird killer, unless no birds die ever.

Do wind turbines kill more birds than cats?

Looking at this source [0] they kill about as many birds in a year as we eat chickens in a week, i.e. ~1 million.

7 times as many are killed by cell towers, 80x as many by cars, and up to 1000x as many by cats. Maybe they should put cat ears on turbines and people would be fine with them.

[0] https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/renewables/weekly-data-how...

> If wind turbines were the number one bird killer

They are not.

They're not even the number ten bird killer.