Bats and Wind Turbines: Study Launched

[Cheryl Jones]

Research team probes wind turbines effect on bat population

SUMMIT -- One of the world's largest wind power owner-operators is making history here on one of the numerous ridges that comprise the Allegheny Mountains.

Some 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, in Somerset County, Iberdrola Renewables Inc. agreed to let an independent scientific team study the impact of turbines on the local bat population when the company's 10-month-old wind farm in Summit Township is temporarily shut down.

Believed to be a first by a wind farm owner, Iberdrola Renewables provided funding for the project, conducted by representatives of Bat Conservation International, an Austin, Texas, organization dedicated to bat conservation, education and research initiatives.

Read on: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 93702.html

[baa43003]

The November 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine has a blurb about bats and wind farms (page 16). It states that researchers at University of Calgary have shown that bats die as they migrate through wind farms due to "barotrauma." They claim barotrauma occurs when the turbines' blades create low pressure, causing the bats' lungs to over-expand, tear, and bleed. Sounds weird to me but I admit I don't know squat about bat lungs. I wonder if the Calgary folks are involved with the Iberdrola project?

[SpeleoRover]

Dr. Dave Buehler and Ms. Jenny Fiedler did a bat and bird mortality project in the Cumberland Mts in TN a few years back, too.

[answerguru]

I'm interested to see their results...most of the quotes online regarding bird / bat deaths relate to the wind farm located in the hills East of San Francisco. The problems there are exaggerated because the wind farm was built in the middle of a bird migratory path and the wind turbines are very old - meaning they are smaller and rotate at a much faster rate than the giant turbines in use today.

I'm not saying there isn't any negative effect on populations, I'm just glad that it's being studied so we can have valid answers and mitigate them appropriately.

[Rick Brinkman]

Whatever the result are, be sure to see how they do the count. For a local wind farm, they found 36 dead bats over an 11 month period....but extrapolated that to be the equivalent of 1200 bats killed. Wish I could get my paycheck calculated that way.