Canaport Gas Plant Accidentally Kills Thousands of Migrating Birds With Gas Flare
Several endangered bird species were possibly included in about 7,500 migrating birds that were attracted to the gas flare emitted by the Canaport Gas Plant.
Fraser Forsythe, the environmental manager of the plant, said in a CBC News article that the birds somehow were attracted to its flare like what moths usually do. The New Brunswick Museum zoology head Don McAlpine added that what transpired with the birds turned out pretty unusual.
Mr McAlpine also mentioned that the birds that were accidentally killed were discovered to have been nocturnal migrants. The curator told news919 that the bird species were not able to fly as high during the tragic night since the cloud cover that time was considerably low. With the weather unstable too, the birds could not help but be attracted to the light emitted by the flare of the plant. "They are attracted to light so a large flare like that would attract them like a moth would be attracted to a flame," he said.
UPI.com also mentioned that about 6,800 of the affected birds were put to death instantly by the heat of the gas flare, while hundreds more were severely injured.
Mr Forsythe said that even some of the employees of the Canaport LG company shed some tears over what happened to the large group of birds killed. Efforts of identifying the exact species of the birds killed and injured continued on till Tuesday along with the process of cleaning up the various bird carcasses.
As an action plan, the company has listed bird monitoring activities as part of their environmental actions as stated in their Web site. It was in March 2012 when they announced their plans of a million dollar upgrade to lessen their flaring activities, as reported by CBC.
It can be noted that one of the primary causes of birds' death is crashing into tall buildings, among many others.