Weird News of the Day: Hawaii moves to DTV early – to avoid birds

It’s now a month until the USA transitions to all digital TV signals, and things (aside from some voucher issues) seem to be going pretty smoothly. No carriers or stations report they’re not prepared so far, and it appears as though its going to happen right on schedule.

It seems (based on reports from several sites) that Hawaii has transitioned to DTV a month early, and things have been a little unsettled, but the launch has been going well overall.

The reason for the early start? Officials wanted to see that analog transmission towers on the edges of Maui’s Haleakala volcano (the ones in the picture here) were taken down before the nesting season of the dark-rumped petrel, which apparently doesn’t take kindly to intruders of any kind. It would be very difficult to take down the towers once the nesting season began. You’ll notice I consciously avoided any obvious “that’s for the birds” jokes in the title or article here.

You’re welcome.

Obviously, many hundreds of calls have been pouring in from residents that thought they had another month to prepare, but according to reports, they’re handling things and helping residents get the boxes or info they need to move into the digital age. Nothing like mother nature lending a hand to get technology moving along.