Editor''s note:

My August editorial on birds flying into towers brought me both hostility and humor. While the broadcasters saw that the numbers given by the bird lobby were obviously ridiculous and bogus, the bird lovers did not. What I learned is that the tweety bird has some really emotional, irrational (and hostile) friends out there. Here are a few examples.

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I just finished reading your editorial “Could dead birds derail DTV?” I cannot believe that you would have written that. Talk about giving every environmentalist fodder to attack the tower/broadcast industry. You basically walked right into their trap by coming across as a bird-hating anti-environmentalist, which is something the broadcast profession does not need. You would have better served the industry and your readers by questioning whether or not such reports of massive bird kills are believable.

Here in Vermont and New Hampshire I have had the pleasure of visiting tower sites on many hills and mountains and I have never seen evidence of birds being killed by towers or guy wires. That is not to say that it doesn''t happen, but the numbers seem way out of whack and are most likely being used to stop tower building rather than protect wildlife. If no one questions bad research, it eventually becomes fact.

I would suggest that you use your power in the editorial seat to search out and offer better facts about such a possibility, rather than acting like we in the television industry hate all birds and could care less. Attitudes like that are what get industries into big trouble with the public — trouble we may not be able to overcome.
Raymond P. Kulig
DHMC
Lebanon, NH

Editor responds:

You missed the point Ray. The environmentalists and fowl lovers obviously don''t need “facts.” They just make ‘em up as they go. Anyone who''s ever worked around a tower knows the numbers put forth by these guys are bogus. I''m just reporting what they claim.

Even the most intelligent of our species can be overwhelmed by emotion, causing certain electrical pulses in the brain (particularly those of rational thought) to connect improperly. Towerkill.com tries to educate us through public channels; in this case, the Internet. As irony would have it, my access to the same public channel they are utilizing comes from a tower! That''s right! Wireless Internet at your service. As technology advances, (Bluetooth, 802.11, etc.) we can expect to see fewer and fewer wires. The fewer wires there are, the more the towers will load up. The more the towers load up, the greater the need for towers.

I must confess that I am a city dweller. I enjoy the city lifestyle as well as the aesthetic of urban architecture. In the long run, when I look out the window of my apartment gazing towards the sunset, I would much prefer to see what birds do make it past those towers of death than peer through a maze of twelve thousand wires strangling what little connection I have to nature.
Joseph Porter

We had that problem in Canada at a generating station that was on a bird migration route. From what I''ve heard, all you need to do is change the lights from continuous to flashing/strobe. Planes still see it and birds don''t see it as the moon. Next problem…

Cheers,
Peter Foulger

Dear Brad,

Loved your editorial on the birds and towers. We''ve seen a few dead birds under our towers — maybe five a year. I don''t know where this guy comes up with 30,000 in one night. Wouldn''t the birds be about 10 feet deep? Sounds like somebody is fudging the numbers.

Maybe you can promote horizontal towers to prevent any more bird deaths? Tell the bird lovers that towers provide a resting place for tired birds, and we prefer to have them called “bird sanctuaries.”
Tony Wortmann

This is a hoax, right?

Putting aside the fact that your average bird is a daytime creature and unlikely to fly into towers at night, I''ll point out that almost all broadcast towers are within chain-link fenced areas where predators would find it difficult to gain access to this bounty of killed, stunned or wounded birds. I don''t recall seeing any piles of avian accident victims under our tower, however. They should be several feet deep by now.
Name withheld on request