Ed Stelmach Loves Ducks

Sure he does. Of course he does. Everybody loves a duck, right? I'm sure Ed's real broken up over the news that about 500 migrating ducks landed in one of the massive toxic oil sands tailing ponds, and, well, died horrible lingering oily deaths.

But c'mon people, let's put things into perspective...

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is down playing the deaths, saying that wind turbines kill 30,000 birds annually.

No. Really. Don't stop there, Ed. Tell them the other major causes of avian deaths, like:

Utility transmission and distribution lines: 130 to 174 million
Collisions with automobiles and trucks: 60 to 80 million
Lighted Communication Towers: 40 to 50 million
Tall building and residential house windows: 100 million to 1 billion

And those numbers are just for the United States! Then there's cats, jet engines, bridges, etc.

So really, what's another few hundred dead birds? That would be, like, comparing the puny number of cancer deaths and birth defects at Love Canal to the thousands of cancer deaths and birth defects that happen every single day all over the world!