Wind Turbines: Saving the Planet but Butchering Bats
Wind Turbines: Saving the Planet but Butchering Bats -
At a recent evening “batwalk” at the University of California’s Sedgwick Reserve conducted by vertebrate biologist Paul W. Collins, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, I learned that a lot of bats are dying from turbines used to produce renewable energy.
I emphasize this was my own discovery because a quick Google search reveals the problem is well-known to bat fanciers; there’s even a 9-year-old Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative. That birds and windmills don’t always mix is something I knew, thanks in part to active inbox lobbying from groups like the American Bird Conservancy and even those sub rosa environmentalists at The Heartland Institute.
However, in the last four years, bat mortality has exceeded bird mortality at wind farms in the U.S.
Birds seem more likely to be the victim of spinning blades since their navigation - little magnets in their heads aside—is more visual than bats’ snazzy sonar systems. Shouldn’t a bat, which after all can find a mosquito in midair, be able to locate and then whip around a giant wind turbine like they do other structures? Piles of bats at the bottom of turbines suggest the answer is no.