Radar Could Save Bats from Death by Wind Turbine

In the epic battle of conservationists vs. clean energy advocates, a compromise may have just been reached – at least, in terms of the protection of bats. Scientists have discovered that radar may help keep bats away from wind turbines. Researchers and conservationists have raised concerns in the past about wind turbines inadvertently killing the creatures.

From MSNBC:

For instance, in 2004, over the course of six weeks, roughly 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed at two wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, respectively. The bats might not be killed by the wind turbine blades directly, but instead by the sudden drop in air pressure the swinging rotors induce, which in turn cause their lungs to over-expand and burst surrounding blood vessels.

A student at the University of Aberdeen first noticed that bats shied away from radar installations while driving past them. He was holding a bat detector out the window to scope out bat activity on the drive back home from out in the field. (Bat detectors are gadgets that scan for ultrasonic bat calls.)

You might think bats wouldn’t be affected by radar because they use sound waves to navigate in the dark, but researchers installed small portable marine radar units at 20 bat foraging sites inScotland and after monitoring bat presence, found that the radar reduced bat activity by 30 to 40 percent. The radar didn’t keep insects away, suggesting that the radar works as a deterrent, not by chasing away bats’ food.

Scientists hope that they’ll be able to design a radar system that would reduce bat activity near wind turbines by 80 to 90 percent. That would certainly be a big victory for both sides of the conservationists vs. clean energy battle.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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