Effects on Wildlife

There are no reliable formal studies of the effect of industrial wind turbine facilities on animals. Outside the Windustry it is generally agreed that the installation of such large structures in wild areas, along with supporting roads and transmission infrastructure and the clearing of trees on mountain ridges, inevitably has a net negative effect, if only because of the loss, degradation, and fragmentation of habitat, especially ecologically vital interior forest. The turbines also move (producing noise and vibration) and are illuminated by strobes day and night, adding to the distressing impact they likely have.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence such as the following about the effect of a wind facility on Backbone Mountain, West Virginia: "I looked around me, to a place where months before had been prime country for deer, wild turkey, and yes, black bear, to see positively no sign of any of the animals about at all. This alarmed me, so I scouted in the woods that afternoon. All afternoon, I found no sign, sight, or peek of any animal about."

“This is a double standard that more people—and not just bird lovers—should be paying attention to. In protecting America's wildlife, federal law-enforcement officials are turning a blind eye to the harm done by "green" energy.”

— Robert Bryce
Windmills Are Killing Our Birds
WSJ.com

 

“Once thought to have practically no adverse environmental effects, it is now recognized that wind power facilities can have adverse impacts—particularly on wildlife, and most significantly on birds and bats... At wind power-generating facilities in Appalachia and California, wind turbines have killed large numbers of migratory birds and bats. Wind power facilities may also have other impacts on wildlife through alterations of habitat. Habitat destruction and modification is a leading threat to the continued survival of wildlife species in the United States.”

“Three federal laws—the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act— generally forbid harm to various species of wildlife. Although significant wildlife mortality events have occurred at wind power facilities, the federal government has not prosecuted any cases against wind power companies under these wildlife laws, preferring instead to encourage companies to take mitigation steps to avoid future harm. All of the six states GAO reviewed had statutes that can be used to protect some wildlife from wind power impacts; however, similar to (U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service), no states have taken any prosecutorial actions against wind power facilities where wildlife mortalities have occurred.”

Impacts on Wildlife and Government Responsibilities
for Regulating Development and Protecting Wildlife
United States GAO, September 2005

 

Wind energy production affects birds primarily through direct mortality from collisions with the turbine blades, towers, power lines, or with other related structures, and electrocution on power lines. Secondary impacts on birds also includes avoidance of the wind turbines and habitat surrounding them and impacts resulting from the affects on bird habitats from the turbines’ footprint, roads, power lines, and auxiliary buildings.

Sadly, the smaller migratory and song birds killed by the turbines fall to the ground and attract raptors such as hawks, vultures and eagles which are then in danger of being killed as well. Unless the wind developer removes the carcasses on a frequent and regular basis, it will continue to attract other birds and the tragic cycle continues.

Mike Daulton, Director of Conservation Policy for the National Audubon Society, is not optimistic: “Scientists are particularly concerned about the potential cumulative effects of wind power on species populations if industry expands dramatically... to generate 5 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2020 using average size (1.5 MW) wind turbines, would require more than 62,000 additional turbines to be constructed in the United States, adding to the more than 16,000 turbines already constructed... Currently there are no mandatory federal regulatory standards, and few state standards, regarding the design or siting of wind power facilities to reduce risks to birds and other wildlife... Siting decisions are often made based on wind resources, ease of access to land, and accessibility of transmission lines."

He continues, "At present, little or no effort is made to coordinate the siting of wind facilities at a regional scale to avoid conflicts with migratory birds and bats. At the local scale, minimal pre-construction inventories of bird use are conducted to assess potential risks to birds. Furthermore, because there are no widely recognized standards for unacceptable levels of mortality and other risks such as displacement, it is rare for a wind power proponent to reject a site solely on the basis of risks to birds.”

But surely the government is conducting avian impact assessments, right?:

“...the Service is not currently conducting independent studies related to wind energy impacts on migratory birds or bats in the Northeast. Instead, we have been requesting information from project proponents (i.e. the developers) on the temporal and spatial use by migratory birds and bats of commercial grade wind energy sites in the Northeast. However, the wind industry has been generally reluctant to conduct studies and provide such information. Without such pertinent information, and adequately trained field staff, project impacts on migratory birds and bats are difficult to adequately assess, and we are not able to perform our regulatory and advisory roles in licensing domestic wind energy projects on land in the Northeast.”

— Marvin Moriarty, Regional Director,
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

And what about bats? Why should we be concerned about bats? Because they’re the only major predator of night-flying insects, consuming more than 50 percent of their own body weight in insects every night. That translates into big dollars for farmers and foresters since a bat’s targets include agricultural pests such as beetles, moths and leaf-hoppers. Their voracious appetites for black flies and mosquitoes are also much appreciated. Remove 100,000 bats from the environment and you allow more than a ton of extra insects — 450 million of them — to roam free each night and every night thereafter.

In 2005 , Ed Arnett, a biologist with Bat Conservation International, released his study of two Florida Power and Light windplants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. His research reaffirmed earlier studies showing major bat mortality. Faced with the news that its wind turbines were killing thousands of bats Florida Power and Light, reacted quickly. It barred scientists from pursuing follow-up work, removed its $75,000 contribution from the research cooperative studying bat mortality and ended the doctoral work of a graduate student who had produced two years of data showing unusually high rates of bat death at the Pennsylvania and West Virginia sites. Although Florida Power and Light has pulled the plug on further research into avian and bat mortality on any of its properties, the company plans to construct hundreds more turbines in the mountainous areas of the region.

Scientists have known for years that bats are killed by the turbines but they always assumed that, like birds, it was the result of collisions with the rotating blades. During recent studies of bat mortality Canadian researchers found that most of the bats they dissected had suffered burst blood vessels in their lungs, suggesting that their deaths were caused by a condition called barotrauma.

When wind moves through a turbine's blades, air pressure drops behind them. The lungs and blood vessels of bats quickly expand and burst when they wander into these low-pressure zones. "As turbine height increases, bat deaths increase exponentially," said ecologist Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Alberta.

It has been suggested that the only way to minimize bat mortality would be to stop the turbines from rotating at night. For obvious financial reasons wind project owners will not consider this.

Another way in which wind power projects affect wildlife populations is chemical. In order to keep the vegetation from growing in the area surrounding the turbines, herbicides are used. The effects of using herbicides is less immediate and so there is little that can be said about it definitively. Herbicides can impact all kinds of life. Through erosion and runoff, these chemicals can find their way into the rivulets and brooks that originate on the mountains and ridge lines that are sacrificed for wind power. Inevitably they make their way to the greater watersheds and water wells below.

03/09/10
Fish & Wildlife opposes wind farm
Gordon Dritschilo, Rutland (VT) Herald

03/09/10
Wind farms put pressure on bats
Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News

09/07/09
Windmills are killing our birds
Robert Bryce, Wall Street Journal

08/13/09
Birds vs. Environmentalists? The wind industry may be green, but it's proving deadly to wildlife.
Christina Gillham, Newsweek