Al Manville’s introduction of our ninth speaker, Sidney Gauthreaux.

Sidney Gauthreaux, who spoke earlier this afternoon on this panel, is going to provide a summary of what was presented in Panel 1. Sid.

Sidney Gauthreaux, Summary of Scientific Session, Panel 1 Presentations.

Just a few comments in the way of synthesizing the first panel’s presentations. Three presentations by Todd Engstrom, Ron Larkin, and myself emphasize how little work is out there in terms of the actual data we have been able to gather in a systematic way. Three panelists talked about techniques. Bill Evans, of course, with the acoustical aspects; Adam Kelly, with an overview of radar techniques that may be able to bear on the problem; and Paul Kerlinger talking about an incredibly important aspect – metrics – as part of the whole methodology of doing studies. I mentioned in my study metrics problems and others have done so too. Bob Beason addressed an issue that a lot of people don’t have the time or the expertise to pay attention to, and that is understanding the fundamental physiology of birds that might contribute to this pattern. We can’t put too much emphasis on simply looking at what they are doing and so forth. Some of this work is going to have to go into the laboratory and we are going to have to do basic research, not applied research. And finally, Michael Mesure pointed out that in terms of stakeholders, those stakeholders may be far more abundant than we think initially. There are corporations out there, be they cell phone companies, telecommunications companies, or banks in tall buildings that would like to contribute some understanding to the problem and certainly some solution to that problem as well. Michael, I wonder how expensive it would be to put shades on windows at night in some of these tall Toronto buildings? It seems like a rather ridiculously simple solution, and perhaps not terribly costly. So, in overview this afternoon, I think we have set the stage for Panel 2 which is going to show some follow-up effort and get more into the litigation perhaps, and some of the problems associated with enforcement.

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