That was the headline in a story reported in the Globe and Mail on April 22.
I informed the Globe’s editors that the duck harvest by hunters in the lower 48 U.S. states alone was 11.14 million birds killed in 2020-2021, up from the harvest of 9.8 million in 2019-2020, due to a 5 percent increase in hunter numbers.
I asked them how a few dozen birds dead in a tailings pond is Canadian national news?
The AER and the Globe are making too much of a small number of dead birds. We must ask why.
Do they report the number of birds, especially raptors, killed by wind turbines? Do they report the number of birds killed by flying into power lines and transmission towers? Do they report the number of birds killed by flying into buildings, residential windows, antennas, farm silos, etc.? Do they report the number of birds killed by domestic cats?
For example, in the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year. Although this number may seem unbelievable, it represents the combined impact of tens of millions of outdoor cats.
Mike Priaro, B.Eng.Sc. (Chem. Eng.), U.W.O. '76, P.Eng., Lifetime Member Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), worked in facilities, production, operations and reservoir engineering, as engineering consultant, area superintendent, and engineering management in Alberta's oil patch for 25 years for companies such as Amoco and PetroCanada.
He increased oil production from the historic Turner Valley oilfield and brought in under-balanced drilling and completion technology to drill out, complete, and test several of the highest producing gas wells ever on mainland Canada at Ladyfern. He co-authored ‘Advanced Fracturing Fluids Improve Well Economics’ in Schlumberger's Oilfield Review and developed the course material for the ‘Advanced Production Engineering’ course at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Mike has presented his work to Canada’s House Committee on Natural Resources in Ottawa and to the Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications in Calgary. He has had work published in: JNW Energy, Feb. 27, 2017; Alberta Oil magazine, Oct. 20, 2016; World Pipelines magazine, Sept. 2016; the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in the Mar. and Apr., 2014 and Feb., 2015 editions of Inside Policy magazine; energy industry websites such as RBN Energy and OilPrice.com; Oil and Gas Journal, Jul. 17, 2014; Petroleum Technology Quarterly, Q3 2014; and in columns in the Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Halifax Chronicle Herald, and others.
Mike has no formal connection to any oil company, environmental organization, think tank, labour organization, lobbying or special interest group, academia, or to provincial or federal politics.
In 2015 Mike provided "A Preliminary Engineering, Economic, and Environmental Evaluation of ASRL's Partial Upgrading Process" to Alberta Sulphur Research Limited and presented it to 80 representatives of ASRL's member companies. ASRL partial upgrading subsequently obtained Alberta government funding and industry support. On Jan. 29, 2016, the Alberta Government made partial upgrading a priority based on its Royalty Review Panel’s recommendations. ASRL’s partial upgrading flow test pilot ran at CANMET/NRCan’s research facility in Devon, AB during 2016.
In 2016 Mike was invited to be a Bowman Centre Volunteer Associate at the not-for-profit Bowman Centre for Sustainable Energy. Its mission is 'to catalyze big energy projects which drive Canada’s energy strategy and generate sustainable wealth and jobs'.
Mike’s work can also be found on his LinkedIn pages: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-priaro or Behance website: https://www.behance.net/Mike_Priaro
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MIKE PRIARO: INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS OF ENERGY, POLITICS, CLIMATE, AND SCIENCE. MIKE PRIARO: OIL PAINTINGS. 