Can someone pick out the site he was going to land on at Mercury Island??? Without the aid of Sir Chris Bonington? It looks about as welcoming as to land on as an Iceberg.
Icebergs are actually far better spots to land at.
I find it very hard to believe that he could have made such impact on the birds and the nesting grounds by " hovering for 5-10 seconds" like pilot states
but like described in the arcticle it is “the most important catastrophe for coastal biodiversity in decades” sounds like bit drama or hysteria to me, there must been something more to it. It is just always easy to blaim it on the pilot or the helicopter, this is just same story everywhere with this environment hysteric people, you cannot or may not do/go nowhere by any means of motor driven transportation, only right way to travel is by foot, I call em Goretex-Fascists
I landed (with permit) in middle of protected gannet nesting ground on a reseach mission on the rock
Eldey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, just approach slowly and the birds did not move at all, eventually they had to be pushed out the way with the skids, same story when filming for the film "Home" we where circling the island for an hour very close, the gannet was not bothered by us at all.
http://www.gannetlive.com/webcam from that rock