Bird on a Wire - impact of wireless communication systems on bird populations - Brief Article

Chief Executive, The, August, 2000 by Joe Queenan

In theory, a wireless world in which everyone is continuously connected to everyone else via an assortment of handheld devices seems like a dream come true. Yet even now the usual cavalcade of naysayers, spoilsports, and harbingers of doom are mustering their forces to oppose this latest face of the technological revolution that is rapidly reshaping society.

Consider the vexing issue of telephone lines. As the wireless revolution spreads, telephone lines will soon cease to be necessary and both the poles and the wires strung from them can be torn down. In their place, trees can be planted all across the heartland. On the surface, this seems like a pleasing proposition. But already environmentalists in Vermont, Oregon, and Arizona are predicting an ecological holocaust should this event come to pass.

"Telephone poles that have been in place for years in rural environments provide a semi-natural habitat for the Minoan snow crow, the runic thrush, and Pitcairn's Egret, all of which appear on current lists of endangered species," fumes Annabeth Prescott, president of PETB (People for the Ethical Treatment of Birds). "Because telephone poles, unlike trees, provide clear sight lines for birds, it is impossible for cats to sneak up on them and eat their young. When telephone poles pass from the scene, more than 5,000 species of birds will see their habitats destroyed."

This is not the only menace to the avian community posed by wireless technology. Ornithologists also predict a catastrophic disruption in migratory patterns once phone lines are dismantled.

"Birds have a terrible sense of direction," says Ray Sharkey, a professor of ornithological psychology at the University of Cairns in Australia. "When you see birds flying south in the winter, they are actually following the north-south direction of the telephone lines, which replaced easily identifiable Native American portage trails in the second half of the 19th century. Without telephone wires to direct them, Canadian geese flying south will probably end up in the Yukon."

Sharkey also cites the vital importance of telephone wires as safe resting places for birds living in tropical, semitropical, or topographically unprotected environments. "Vultures can't actually fly very fast or very far, so without telephone wires to perch on, they're going to be forced to sit on the ground, where predators can get to them," explains Prescott. "That means that within a generation, most species of vultures will be wiped out by pumas and cougars, and local sanitation workers will have to go out into the desert to clean up all those rotting carcasses that vultures have traditionally disposed of. Once the vultures are gone, Death Valley is not going to be a picture postcard destination for tourists."

Animals are not the only species to be affected by the wireless revolution. As cell phones become ubiquitous, public telephones will cease to be necessary. Globally, this will put 17 million telephone repairmen, and another 48 million people who work in cognate branches of the phone industry, out of work.

"As anyone who has ever used a public telephone in a large American city recently is well aware, only one phone box in two actually works," says Jake O'Toole, media director of the North American Telephone Workers Union. "As an outgrowth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration, public phones were designed to keep millions of Americans in a job because they were designed to break. When public telephones are no longer necessary, you're going to have 65 million people out of work. And believe me, these are not people with rapidly transferable skills."

Some of the hidden threats posed to society by wireless technology derive from the features of the handheld devices themselves. The New York Times recently reported that several Scandinavian companies are working on computer games that can be played on hand-held phones; remote employees may soon start spending 75 percent of their time playing on their phones.

One Swedish company has perfected a device that allows phone users to compete in a fantasy soccer league. Since soccer is the most boring sport ever invented, it's unlikely that employees will waste time on it. But should wireless phones with the capacity to play basketball or ice hockey or car racing ever be developed, U.S. business could screech to a halt, paralyzed by an epidemic of employee goofing off.

Which would be great for the Minoan snow crow.

That's why it's not hard to imagine companies banning wireless phones and requiring their employees to use old-fashioned rotary devices. Which would mean that the telephone poles would have to stay in place.