Category Archives: wind turbines

Bats Think Wind Turbines Are Trees

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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.

Feds Offer Wind Training

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previous wind broadcastHas reviewing wind power project siting proposals become part of your department’s responsibilities? The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is holding a training on Weds., Jan. 29. Other broadcasts in the series cover other aspects of wind turbine siting. Here’s the announcement from USFWS:

Register now for the 4th Broadcast of Wind Energy Training Series for Voluntary Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines:

January 29, 2-4 pm ET

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is hosting a training broadcast series to cover the voluntary Land-based Wind Energy Guidelines (WEG) and other relevant wind energy topics.

The fourth broadcast will air on Wednesday, January 29, 2014, 2:00 to 4:00 pm ET. Host Christy Johnson-Hughes will be joined by Kathy Boydston (Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies), Charles Newcomb (Distributed Wind Energy Association), and Jennifer Norris (Ohio Department of Natural Resources).  The broadcast will focus on how the WEG apply to distributed wind energy projects; coordination with State agencies; and the identification of “species of habitat fragmentation concern” as defined in the WEG.

E-mail windbroadcast@fws.gov with the subject “register” to register for this broadcast.

View previous broadcasts and related materials.

Photo: Screenshot of previous wind training broadcast, courtesy USFWS. Video is not embedded however. (See “View previous broadcasts…” for link.)

Preventing Wildlife Deaths at Wind Turbines

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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.

Federal Wind Project Guidelines Finalized

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It has taken five years, but a new set of guidelines to protect wildlife from the impacts of  land-based wind energy projects was announced by the US Fish and Wildlife Service today. If, looking them over, they seem familiar, that is because the draft guidelines were made available for comment last July.

The guidelines were developed by a committee made up of representatives from the wind power industry, non-government environmental organizations, and state wildlife departments. (There was also one representative of native tribes.)

These are just guidelines, with no regulatory teeth.

You can find the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s landing page for the wind guideline information — which includes a press release, a fact sheet, and the guidelines themselves, here.

Photo credit: Joshua Winchell, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Federal Wind Project Guidelines Finalized

Posted on by
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It has taken five years, but a new set of guidelines to protect wildlife from the impacts of  land-based wind energy projects was announced by the US Fish and Wildlife Service today. If, looking them over, they seem familiar, that is because the draft guidelines were made available for comment last July.

The guidelines were developed by a committee made up of representatives from the wind power industry, non-government environmental organizations, and state wildlife departments. (There was also one representative of native tribes.)

These are just guidelines, with no regulatory teeth.

You can find the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s landing page for the wind guideline information — which includes a press release, a fact sheet, and the guidelines themselves, here.

Photo credit: Joshua Winchell, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Maybe Bats Just Hit (or Get Hit by) Wind Turbines

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Four years ago a science journal article was published saying that most of the bats found dead at an Alberta wind farm had no signs of external injuries, but their lungs were damaged. The verdict: barotrauma, damage caused by a sharp change in pressure. In humans the most common example is when you rupture an ear drum while on an airplane.

It was unexpected, it was weird, and it got plenty of coverage in the general media. (National Geographic News; Discover Magazine blog)

Now some Illinois scientists have published a paper in the journal Veterinary Pathology that says that damaged lungs can be an artifact of freezing specimens before examination, and that the bats they examined that were found dead at an Illinois wind farm showed every sign of plain old trauma. In fact, the paper says, the bats at the wind farm had more external injuries than the bats found dead in downtown Chicago that were assumed to have been killed by flying into buildings.

Read the article in Veterinary Pathology, here. (Fee or subscription required.)

Photo: Gray bat, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Stats on two threats to birds

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A study of a Wisconsin wind farm found that raptors mostly avoided the site, resulting in a big reduction of raptors in the area after the turbines went up. It also found that red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures took the most risks near the turbines, although red-tails were the only raptors found dead in the wind farm. Read the open-access article in The Journal of Applied Ecology here.

Also in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Dutch researchers found that birds breeding near noisy roadways had smaller clutch sizes than other birds. When the roads were noisy in April, the birds had fewer fledglings, regardless of clutch size. The species studied was Parus major. The paper, again, open access, is here.

Stats on two threats to birds

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A study of a Wisconsin wind farm found that raptors mostly avoided the site, resulting in a big reduction of raptors in the area after the turbines went up. It also found that red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures took the most risks near the turbines, although red-tails were the only raptors found dead in the wind farm. Read the open-access article in The Journal of Applied Ecology here.

Also in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Dutch researchers found that birds breeding near noisy roadways had smaller clutch sizes than other birds. When the roads were noisy in April, the birds had fewer fledglings, regardless of clutch size. The species studied was Parus major. The paper, again, open access, is here.