A combination of foggy weather and light from the flare attracted thousands of migrating songbirds towards the open flame of the gas flare at the Irving Canaport LNG gas facility in New Brunswick, Canada. By daybreak, more than 7,000 migrating songbirds were dead or unable to fly.
Opened in 2009 in Saint John, New Brunswick, the Irving Canaport LNG facility is capable of meeting 20% of the natural gas demand in the northeast.
A combination of foggy weather and light from the flare attracted thousands of migrating songbirds towards the open flame of the gas flare at the Irving Canaport LNG gas facility in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. By daybreak, more than 7,000 migrating songbirds were dead or unable to fly.
Three Canada warblers (Wilsonia canadensis) - a “threatened species” listed under the Species at Risk Act - that died when they flew into a gas flare at the Irving Canaport LNG facility in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, on September 13th, 2013.
The singed feathers of a dead Canada warbler (Wilsonia canadensis) that flew into a gas flare at the Irving Canaport LNG facility on Septemebr 13th, 2013. Many birds were brought to the ground live, their flight feathers having been singed by the 1,000 degreee temperatures of the flare stack.
Each of the 7,352 songbirds were collected and kept in freezers at the New Brunswick Museum. They were catalogued, identified and coded for the extent of their injuries, a process that took a nearly two months to complete.
Dead songbirds, part of over 7,000, that died when they flew into a gas flare at the Irving Canaport LNG facility in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, on September 13th, 2013.
Further investigations at the flare site revealed the decomposed remains from songbird deaths associated with flaring that had gone unreported at Canaport LNG prior to the Sept. 13th incident. Despite the known risk, Canaport LNG failed to take all reasonable steps to minimize the risk.
