Wind Energy and Wildlife: Birds, Bats, and other Critters

From Great Lakes Wiki

This is a page for information about how wind energy development and wind energy systems can affect all kinds of wildlife.

For example, one of the first concerns raised about any new wind farm is whether the wind machines will kill birds. The concern is valid, but it stems primarily from bad experiences with California wind farms in the 1980s, and both manufacturers and wind farm developers have since changed practices significantly, to avoid creating problems for any and all kinds of wildlife.

No modern wind farm that uses bank financing is constructed without prior wildlife and environmental impact assessments. Important wildlife habitat and migrating territories are quickly identified and considered off limits to wind development. Otherwise, the loan officers at the bank would not have done their due diligence to avoid defaults on the loans.

Having said that, however, it should be understood that there may presently be no formal regulatory requirement to do wildlife impact studies, unless there is a protected species using the area. Even that would not necessarily include the potential for a protected species to migrate through the affected area.

As a result of the lack of official study requirements, researchers have noted a lot of variation in the breadth and depth of wind farm pre-construction wildlife studies. It is feared that some wind farm projects could be proceeding without data collection on wildlife migration pathways, including studies of both song-birds and raptors. Scientists presently know even less about bat migration patterns. At least some wildlife researchers believe there is a need to collect pre- and post-construction data on wildlife, in order to better determine possible wildlife impacts.

The national Audubon Society supports wind energy development that takes into account environmental impacts and avoids critical wildlife habitat.

Studies in the Midwest and Great Plains conducted by independent researchers (that is, not by companies seeking to build wind farms) have shown small numbers of birds killed, on the order of 2 birds or less per turbine per year, and typically common and not rare or endangered species.

The National Wind Coordinating Collaborative has formed a Wildlife Workgroup to work on these issues.

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has a wind energy program, and provides a good primer and links about the potential mortality threats to birds that can be caused by wind turbines and wind farms.

The Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC) has launched a new website Bats and Wind.

Call for Wind-Wildlife Research Abstracts! – A call for abstracts has been distributed seeking presenters for Wind Wildlife Research Meeting VII on October 27 – 29th in Milwaukee, WI. Visit the meeting website for more details; abstracts are due June 30th, 2008. More information about wildlife and wind is available at the [Great Lakes Wind] section of the wiki.

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