Category Archives: energy

Bats Think Wind Turbines Are Trees

Posted on by
Reply

wind Turbines credit Joshua WinchellWhy migrating, tree-roosting bats are more susceptible to being killed by wind turbines has been a mystery. In a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS), US Geological Survey scientist Paul Cryan offers an explanation: under certain wind conditions, the air currents around turbines is similar enough to the air currents around trees to confuse the bats into thinking the turbines are big trees.

The paper says that the bats congregate on the downwind side of trees to feast on the flying insects that congregate there. The paper doesn’t make this comparison, but it’s a lot like trout hanging out in an eddy, waiting for insects and other edibles to join them.

The problem, of course, is that spinning blades and barotrauma are not kind to bats that hang around wind turbines.

Two of the take-aways from the paper are that turbine operators can put bat deterrents on the downwind side of the turbines, and that changing the operating parameters of the turbines could help save bats, such as preventing the blades from turning in a sudden gust on an otherwise calm night.

Read the PNAS paper, here.
Read a Washington Post paper on the study and the white nose syndrome threat, here. (But note that it never mentions that one group of bat speices is more vulnerable to white nose syndrome, while a different group of bats is more vulnerable to wind turbines.)
A summary of the paper in the Discover Magazine blog is here.
A different summary of the paper in the Popular Science blog is here.
And just for good luck, here is the write-up from Conservation Magazine.

Photo: Instead of going with a generic bat photo, since I don’t seem to have any of common migrating bats, I went with a generic wind farm photo. This is not the wind farm that was studied in the Cryan paper. Lovely photo by by Joshua Winchell.

Two Bird Flaps

Posted on by
8

Bald_EagleAs we reported on the return of snowy owls to the US last week, another part of the story was unfolding. According to news reports, one of the snowies flew into the engine of an airplane and John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ordered airport personnel to shoot any other snowy owls on sight. Two of the owls were shot on Dec. 7.

Read the news reports here:Mother Nature Network (most detailed)
Business Insider
NY Daily News

An uproar ensued, with objections lodged by NYC Audubon and Change.org. The owls will now be trapped and moved away from the airport.
Read the update in The New York Times, here

Snowy owls aren’t the only raptors gaining attention from their possible deaths this week. Last week the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced new regulations that would extend wind farm’s golden and bald eagle take permits for another 30 years. The original permits were for five years. Among the conservation groups protesting the new regulation are the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy.

Read the Los Angeles Times story on the controversy here.
Read the US Fish and Wildlife Service press release here.
An Associated Press article in the Seattle Times.

Photo: Bald eagle, Dave Menke, USFWS

Energy Development Drives Pronghorn Study

Posted on by
Reply

A pronghorn is released in western ColoradoWildlife researchers with the University of Wyoming (UW), the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are cooperating on a project to study pronghorn antelope in southwestern Wyoming, a WGFD press release says.

According to biologists, the release says, pronghorn in the region are under increasing pressure from human presence and have seen declines in numbers and the ability to recover from hard winters over the past 20 years, primarily because fawn production is very low. The study, however, is driven by energy production in the region. The press release says that the study will, “provide credible information to industry, the WGFD, and land management agencies, such as the BLM, that are involved in permitting energy development in south-central Wyoming.”

The release details the study’s methodology:

“Each pronghorn was aged, weighed, their blood tested for pregnancy and disease, and their body fat measured,” said Wildlife Biologist Tony Mong.” Fecal samples were collected to determine pronghorn stress levels and each animal was fitted with a collar. The proposal for this three-year study specifies that thirty-five animals in each study area will be fitted with GPS collars, which will record locations across three years. Twenty-five additional animals in each study area will be fitted with VHF collars to bolster the sample for survival estimation. The pronghorn will be monitored from the air on a bimonthly basis. All the collars will be retrieved once an animal dies or after the collars are automatically released in August 2015.”

Read the WGFD press release here.

Photo: Pronghorn in a Colorado study. Courtesy Colorado Division of Wildlife. I apologize for the repeat of photos in the last few weeks. There’s just been a lot of news on pronghorns and golden eagles and not a lot of photos of them in my files.

Energy Development Drives Pronghorn Study

Posted on by
Reply

A pronghorn is released in western ColoradoWildlife researchers with the University of Wyoming (UW), the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are cooperating on a project to study pronghorn antelope in southwestern Wyoming, a WGFD press release says.

According to biologists, the release says, pronghorn in the region are under increasing pressure from human presence and have seen declines in numbers and the ability to recover from hard winters over the past 20 years, primarily because fawn production is very low. The study, however, is driven by energy production in the region. The press release says that the study will, “provide credible information to industry, the WGFD, and land management agencies, such as the BLM, that are involved in permitting energy development in south-central Wyoming.”

The release details the study’s methodology:

“Each pronghorn was aged, weighed, their blood tested for pregnancy and disease, and their body fat measured,” said Wildlife Biologist Tony Mong.” Fecal samples were collected to determine pronghorn stress levels and each animal was fitted with a collar. The proposal for this three-year study specifies that thirty-five animals in each study area will be fitted with GPS collars, which will record locations across three years. Twenty-five additional animals in each study area will be fitted with VHF collars to bolster the sample for survival estimation. The pronghorn will be monitored from the air on a bimonthly basis. All the collars will be retrieved once an animal dies or after the collars are automatically released in August 2015.”

Read the WGFD press release here.

Photo: Pronghorn in a Colorado study. Courtesy Colorado Division of Wildlife. I apologize for the repeat of photos in the last few weeks. There’s just been a lot of news on pronghorns and golden eagles and not a lot of photos of them in my files.

Lobbyist-fueled Lizard Monitoring in Texas

Posted on by
Reply

dunes sagebrush lizard“Comptroller Susan Combs’ office, of course, knows doodly squat about lizards,” says a Houston Chronicle editorial on the dunes sagebrush lizard, federally listed as a threatened species. The problem is that the Texas state comptroller’s office is in charge of monitoring the lizard population to make sure the stipulations of a free-market habitat conservation plan are being obeyed.

State law forbids the US Fish and Wildlife Service from so much as reviewing the state contractor’s paperwork, an August article in the Chronicle reported. Even stranger, the editorial reports, the comptroller’s office keeps the identities of the landowners participating in the habitat enhancement program a secret.

And of course, because this is Texas, the editorial mentions that independent oil producers are worried that the lobbyist group monitoring the lizards will favor large producers over the independents.

Read the whole editorial in the Houston Chronicle, here.
Read the news article about the lizard monitoring, in the Chronicle’s oil industry news section, here.

Photo: Dunes sagebrush lizard, courtesy USFWS

NPR on Sage Grouse Initiative

Posted on by
Reply

Sage Grouse vs transmission linesOn Wednesday, NPR had a piece on the Sage Grouse Initiative in Montana. There are photos and audio (or you can just read the article).

The initiative was started by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the piece says. It was joined by The Nature Conservancy, universities and state wildlife agencies. The initiative’s key tools seem to be portable electric fences, and widely distributed watering sites. That’s because having cattle graze intensely in small areas, leaving the grass in other areas to grow tall, as the sage grouse like it, is the goal of the program.

While sage grouse are found in only a few states, the effort to keep the species off the federal endangered species list should be of interest to all wildlife managers, particularly those managing other species at risk. At what point should we take action to keep a species from being listed? At what point does the species need to be listed so the protections of the Endangered Species Act can kick in and save it from extinction?

Stay tuned.

Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Water Users v. Cranes in Texas

Posted on by
Reply

whooping cranes at Aransas NWRIn 2009, 23 federally endangered whooping cranes died because of a drought. A recent court ruling says that this is an illegal take of a federally-endangered species, and that the federal law has precedence over Texas state law, which says that water is doled out on a first come, first served basis, says an article in Bloomberg.

The Texas state agencies will appeal the ruling, the article says.

The whooping crane flock in question is the world’s only self-sustaining wild flock, the article says, migrating from Canada to Texas. The article also implies that what was once “an isolated stretch of Texas coastal marsh,” where a tiny flock of whooping cranes survived unnoticed at a time when the species was thought to be extinct, is now home to the “world’s largest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants.”

Read the Bloomberg article here.

Photo: Whooping cranes at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

Spills Are Sandy’s Latest Wildlife Impact

Posted on by
Reply

The New York State Department of Wildlife Conservation (DEC) is reporting some oiled birds as a result of an oil spill on a Hudson River tributary in Kingston, NY.

More details about the spill are available from the Watershed Post and a report from the Hudson River’s Riverkeeper.
Read the Watershed Post piece, here.
And see the Riverkeeper site for more information about non-point source pollution in the area affected by Sandy.

There is also an oil spill in the Arthur Kill, a narrow waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey. The Hudson Valley Press Online is reporting a spill and clean-up at a local oil company on the Arthur Kill and nearby waterways. Read the story, here.

It appears a nearby marina is stumped by by the appearance of oil. New Jersey News 12 offers a brief write-up and a clip. See it here.

The New York State DEC also announced that shellfishing is closed off Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk Counties until next week because of sewage in the water. Read the details in the NYS DEC press release, here.

Photo: DEC staff rescuing a great blue heron harmed by an oil spill in the Hudson Valley after Hurricane Sandy. Photo used courtesy of NYS DEC.

Tracking Gas Impact on Bald Eagles

Posted on by
Reply

There wasn’t a study of the impact on natural gas extraction on bald eagles before operations started in anticline region of the Green River Valley of Wyoming, so a new study will closely examine which habitats bald eagles in the area are using, and which they are not using, says an article in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

The study is being conducted by Bryan Bedrosian of Craighead Beringia South, a non-profit science and education institute, and Susan Patla of the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, the article says. According to the Craighead Beringia South website, the Bureau of Land Management is another partner in the study.

The research team has attached a solar-powered, rechargeable GPS/satellite tracking devices to six bald eagles, with the stated goal of tracking 12 bald eagles in total. The study is expected to last six years.

Details of the trapping method are described in the Jackson Hole News & Guide article. Read it here.
More details about the study are available on the Craighead Beringia South website. Here. (Includes a slideshow.)
See where the eagles with transmitters are flying, here.

Preventing Wildlife Deaths at Wind Turbines

Posted on by
Reply

Last week the journal Nature published a news feature that rounded up various ways wind power companies are trying to prevent the deaths of birds and bats at wind farms.

The article begins with one labor intensive method: a team of scientists spots a migrating raptor, then alerts the wind farm operators, who shut down the turbines until the bird is safely passed. This, it should be noted, happens in Spain, at the Strait of Gibraltar.

In Pennsylvania, a radar system (the same one we discussed earlier, the fact) detects flocks of migrating birds and shuts the turbines down. It’s not so good for single birds, though. The death of one pelican was recorded on video.

The article notes that the wind power company’s records of the radar system haven’t been shared with independent scientists studying wind turbine collisions, so the system is a bit of a black box.

The article also mentions the successful reduction of bat deaths by stopping the turbines when wind speeds fall below a certain threshold when bats are most active.

Read the whole article in Nature, here.