September 2025 Problem of the Month

On July 25, 2025 in Scotland, U.S. President Trump made demands about cutting the use of wind turbines because of all the birds that they kill.

Based upon the graphic below,fill in the blanks:

_____ times as many birds were killed by cats in 2020 than were killed by wind turbines.

_____ times as many birds were killed by buildings in 2020 than were killed by wind turbines.



Click here for President Trump's statements

Solution to the Problem:

Here is the solution:

There are 312 times as many birds killed by cats as by turbines.
There are 85 times as many birds killed by buildings as by turbines.

There were 365,000,000 birds killed by cats in 2020 and 1,170,000 birds killed by wind turbines.
So, you set up a proportion: 365,000,000 / 1,170,000 = x / 1

where solving for x will give you the desired result, and it represents the number of birds killed by cats for each bird killed by a turbine.

So there are 311.96 or 312 times as many birds killed by cats as by turbines.
Or you could say that there were 363,830,000 more birds killed by cats than turbines in 2020.

Do the same, of course, for buildings: 100,000,000 / 1,170,000 = x / 1

where solving for x will give you the desired result, and it represents the number of birds killed by buildings for each bird killed by a turbine.

So there are 85.47 or 85 times as many birds killed by buildings as by turbines.
Or you could say that there were 98,830,000 more birds killed by buildings than turbines in 2020.