Bats take dangerous flight into the wind farm

via Climate Change Dispatch
http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

Wind turbines attract bats. They seem to appear particularly appealing to female noctule bats in early summer.

In a pilot study, researchers of the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin noticed this when they tracked the flight paths of noctule bats, Nyctalus noctula, using the latest GPS tracking devices.

The bats managed to take even seasoned experts by surprise.

The motive behind the study is the conflict between the exploitation of wind energy and the conservation of the protected bats.

The German so-called ‘Energiewende’, the full transition from conventional to renewable energy sources, causes a steady increase in the number of wind power facilities (wind farms).

This expansion of wind power production throughout Germany is also likely to drastically increase the total number of bat fatalities at wind turbines. There appears to be therefore a conflict between the development of renewable energy sources and the conservation of endangered and legally protected bats; a so-called green-green dilemma.

According to expert estimates, about 250,000 of bats sailing through the night sky are currently dying at wind turbines every year as long as turbines are operated without mitigation measures.

The cause of bat death is either a direct collision with the rotor blades of turbines or a barotrauma caused by abrupt air pressure changes in the tailwind vortices associated with the moving rotor blades.

These abrupt air pressure changes shred the inner organs of bats and kill them instantly. Seventy percent of the bats slain by German wind farms are migrating bat species. Noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) are among these migrating bat species. They are also among the largest bats flying in the night skies of Europe.

How do bats interact with wind farm facilities? Where do bats prefer to hunt their favorite insect prey? What distances do bats fly during the hunt for prey? How high do they fly anyway?

To answer these questions, the research group working with Christian Voigt fitted adult noctule bats with miniaturized GPS data loggers. As a test area, the researchers selected a patch of forest in Brandenburg, eastern Germany. Cultivated land and several wind parks surround this forest patch.

The result: In the early days of summer, female bats seem to be virtually fixated on the giant wind farms. The majority of female bats even crossed the wind parks.

Christian Voigt suspects the following: “One explanation considers the fact that bats make their homes in trees. In early summer, having just finished raising their pups, the female bats take off looking for new homes and hunting grounds.

Conceivably, the bats mistake the wind farm constructions for large dead trees, ideal for serving as bat homes. Our American colleagues have suspected this to be the case for North American bat species already.

By contrast, male bats generally avoided the wind park facilities and continued to commute between their headquarters and hunting grounds without much variation. These male bats had no reason to venture out. They had already established their quarters earlier in the year.”

In general, the bats left their quarters about 30 minutes after sunset. Female bats flew longer and expanded their hunting grounds to a much larger area than the male bats. The researchers were surprised by the long distances the bats flew on their hunts.

On average, female bats spent 1.5 hours in the air and covered almost 30 kilometers during their hunt. The average hunting time for males was only 1.0 hour. In this time, they covered only 15 kilometers.

A few individual bats flew up to 250 meters high. However, the hunting excursions of 95 percent of the bats covered only heights between 0 and 140 meters above ground. This is risky business for the bats because, in most wind farms, the turbine rotors turn at heights between 70 and 130 meters!

The researchers also learned that male bats prefer ‘bio-prey’. Their favorite hunting grounds were above or near organically grown crops. Male bats spent only 21 percent of their flight time above fields with conventionally grown crops. Females were a little less finicky but avoided forest areas. Both male and females frequently hunted near linear structures such as hedgerows or alleys.

The results are further evidence in favor of the idea that environmental goals and conversation goals are in principle compatible with each other. When searching for real estate for future wind parks, operators should exclude certain environments from consideration.

These include meadows and pastures, cultivated areas with organic crops and areas close to rivers and lakes or areas with linear landscape elements. Before considering the installation of a wind farm, bat detector devices can indicate whether bats use the area as a hunting ground.

Such bat detectors listen in on the echolocation calls of bats and automatically record them. “According to legislation, the investor and operator who plan to establish some wind farm facility must test for the presence of bats. Alas, imposed regulations remain largely unheeded!” mentions Christian Voigt.

Small changes in the operation of existing wind farms would be sufficient to minimize bat fatalities and defuse the renewable energy — bat conservation conflict. Bats only rarely fly at temperatures below 10 °C and wind speeds above eight meters per second.

This wind speed is close to the minimum where the net energy production of a wind turbine starts. Operating the turbines only at wind speeds above eight meters per second would cause less than one percent loss in terms of electricity generated, a minute loss for the operator.

The required technology for adjusting the operation of wind turbines in this manner already exists and is readily available. It would, therefore, be no big deal to support bat conservation in addition to providing green energy. Why does it not happen more frequently?

Christian Voigt ventures a guess: “Wind farms already carry the green stamp of renewable energy production. As a consequence, the operators feel that they made a sufficient contribution to environmental protection.

However, it should be the objective of an intelligent ‘Energiewende’ to work sustainably in all areas. This should include both measures to alleviate climate change and the conservation of biological diversity. Climate protection and the conservation of species are compatible.

It is quite simple to avoid sites with large bat populations and to institute the respective shutdown times in the operations of wind farms. This would drastically reduce bat fatalities around wind farms.”

Bats are listed as protected species in Germany as well as in the entire EU. They are the only mammals capable of true active flight, and they play a very useful role in the environment. Bats in Europe live exclusively on insects.

Aside from devouring heaps of menacing mosquitos, they also make short shrift of the legions of crunchy beetles and juicy caterpillars which would otherwise make a meal out of every ear of corn and most vegetables in fields and gardens.

“Bats are veritable service providers for ecosystems. Farmers should appreciate their contribution. They have to use far less insecticide as long as bats hunt for insects above their fields.”

Every killed bat is sorely missed in the population because bats reproduce slowly. Not only local populations but also those of migrating bats shrink in size if there are too many bat fatalities around wind farms.

The fatality rates are particularly devastating for bat species on their way from northeast Europe, where they reproduce, to southern and western Europe via Germany, where they hibernate during the winter months.

Read more at Science Daily

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

June 22, 2017 at 01:57PM

Wind turbines killing more than just local birds

via Climate Change Dispatch
http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

Wind turbines are known to kill large birds, such as golden eagles, that live nearby. Now there is evidence that birds from up to hundreds of miles away make up a significant portion of the raptors that are killed at these wind energy fields.

Using DNA from tissue and stable isotopes from the feathers of golden eagle carcasses, researchers from Purdue University and the U.S. Geological Survey found that golden eagles killed at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in northern California can come from hundreds of miles away.

Golden Eagles are a species of conservation concern, so understanding population-level differences and how individuals interact with turbines is key to meeting a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service target of no net loss of their populations.

The APWRA is one of the oldest wind farms in the country and one of the largest in the world originally with around 5,000 turbines. Worldwide, such facilities have been responsible for the deaths of 140,000 to 328,000 birds and 500,000 to 1.6 million bats, raising questions about their effects on population sustainability.

“Eagles tend to use that habitat around the turbines. It’s windy there, so they can save energy and soar, and their preferred prey, California ground squirrels, is abundant there,” said J. Andrew DeWoody, a Purdue professor of genetics in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. “As they soar, these eagles are often looking straight down, and they fail to see the rapidly moving turbine blades. They get hit by the blades, and carcasses are found on the ground under the turbines.”

Collaborator David Nelson, a stable isotope ecologist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, tested the birds’ feathers for stable hydrogen isotopes, which can be used to determine where the birds likely grew their feathers. The research team determined that about 75 percent of the 62 birds were from the local population. The remaining 25 percent likely migrated into the area before they were killed.

Isotopes are atoms of an element that have different molecular weights. As precipitation moves inland, water with the heavier form of hydrogen falls out first, which creates predictable patterns of the stable isotopes ratios of precipitation across continents.

“When a bird drinks water or eats animals in a particular place, the hydrogen isotope ratios of precipitation in that area get recorded in its tissues,” Nelson said. “You can use these hydrogen ratios in the feathers to determine the approximate place that the bird grew its feathers.”

A genetic analysis revealed that golden eagles from the western U.S. have gene pools similar to those killed at the APWRA, which reflects the capacity of these birds to disperse widely.

“The population models we built confirm that the age structure of the eagles killed at Altamont is difficult to replicate without substantial immigration,” said co-author Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist with the USGS. Katzner said these findings suggest that environmental assessments of alternative energy facilities like Altamont Pass should take into consideration that animal populations affected by wind turbines might not be just local.

“If you only consider local birds in an environmental assessment, you’re not really evaluating the effect that facility may have on the entire population,” Katzner said.

DeWoody said that wind energy generators can receive permits that allow a certain number of unintended bird deaths. But if that number is too large, the companies could be fined. And knowing that a large percentage of the birds killed are from neighboring states could muddy the management waters.

“The golden eagle fatalities at this one site have demonstrated consequences that extend across much of the range of the species across North America,” DeWoody said.

The golden eagle population is a concern for several state and federal agencies, DeWoody added. He said any future research could include looking at more bird species affected by turbines.

Read more at Science Daily

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

June 22, 2017 at 01:27PM

Wind farms killing more bats than expected

via Climate Change Dispatch
http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

As wind farms statewide are killing more Hawaiian hoary bats than expected, a Maui wind farm is asking the state to increase the number of endangered bats and nenes it’s allowed to incidentally kill.

Kaheawa Wind Power II, a 21-megawatt generation facility that ascends the slopes of the West Maui Mountains above Maalaea, wants to increase its number of permitted bat fatalities from 11 to 62 adults and nene fatalities from 30 to 48 adults over the next 15 years. It has already exceeded its bat permitted fatalities.

“The proposed rates of take are expected to be minor relative to the total population of these species on Maui,” Maryland-based KWP II owner Terraform Power said in a statement, citing public records. “The mitigation measures . . . are designed to more than offset these effects and result in a net benefit to both species.”

But because research on both wind energy and bats is still evolving, setting ground rules is a tricky game for those who support both clean energy and wildlife protections.

“I think most of us who track native wildlife are concerned that these trends are starting to show up,” said Lucienne de Naie, conservation chairwoman of the Sierra Club Maui Group. “We’ve just got to know more as soon as possible to allow the wind farms and the creatures to co-exist.”

The ‘ope’ape’a or Hawaiian hoary bat is Hawaii’s only native terrestrial mammal, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. The brown-and-gray furry creatures have white-tinged hair and ears, hence the name “hoary” or frosted.

Very little is known about the habitat and population of the ‘ope’ape’a, which is a subspecies of the North American hoary bat. Research suggests the solitary creature roosts among trees in areas near forests and feeds on native and non-native night-flying insects, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Population estimates across the islands have ranged from hundreds to a few thousand, but this has been based on limited data. Nonetheless, the hoary bat was listed as a federal endangered species in October 1970.

KWP II is among several Hawaii wind farms that have been claiming more Hawaiian hoary bat lives than expected. According to a DLNR report, an estimated 19 bats and nine nenes have been killed at KWP II as of last June, five years into its 20-year permit.

At Kaheawa Wind Power I, higher up the slope at Maalaea and also owned by Terraform, an estimated 34 bats and 41 nenes have been killed since 2006. It’s permitted take by 2026 is 50 for bats and 60 for nene.

And Auwahi, operated by Sempra U.S. Gas & Power on the southern slopes of Haleakala, has recorded an estimated 23 bat fatalities since 2012. Its maximum take is 27 bats by 2037.

In total, Hawaii’s five wind major wind farms are allowed 180 incidental bat deaths. However, they’ve already hit 146, and most are barely five years into their 20-year permits.

As far as the company knows, all fatalities happened because of direct collisions with spinning turbines, Terraform said. Researchers aren’t sure why most bats collide with turbines, though theories include “attraction to insects caught in turbine vortices, warmth, acoustics or mistaking turbines for roost trees.”

Nene collisions are generally attributed to in-flight misjudgment. Once or twice a week, KWP II employees search the ground around the turbines for downed wildlife.

Fatalities may simply be higher than expected because people are getting better at finding them, Terraform said. Measures, such as using specially trained dogs and setting traps for animals that generally carry off the bat carcasses, also have “resulted in higher rates of detection.”

De Naie saw two possible reasons.

“One is that they totally underestimated the lethal power of these machines and the creatures can’t escape them,” de Naie said. “The other is that this is what has been happening all along, but . . . we hadn’t done very much research and didn’t know what the levels were going to be.”

Read more at The Maui News

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

June 22, 2017 at 01:27PM

Legal Group Says Elements Inside State Dept Hiding Shady Information About Paris Deal

via Climate Change Dispatch
http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

A conservative legal group said Wednesday that elements within the Trump administration are hiding evidence showing government officials coordinated with outside lobbying groups while negotiating aspects of the Paris agreement on climate change.

Attorneys for the Department of State filed court documents Monday in response to an E&E Legal’s open records request for the agency’s correspondence with lobbying groups. Officials are withholding the information despite President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nonbinding climate accord.

The agency “sunk to new lows” to withhold and “stonewall the release of crucial documents” regarding the Obama administration’s dogged pursuit of the Paris deal, Matthew Hardin, an attorney for E&E Legal, said in a press statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The move to classify the communication was made more than a year after the documents first appeared, Hardin said, adding that the move was meant to hide from the group and public what he thinks are nefarious aspects of the negotiating process.

E&E Legal also criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for allowing his agency to essentially do former President Barack Obama’s bidding. Obama signed the treaty last year, which obligated the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent within a decade.

Why is Tillerson still “playing such improper games to avoid releasing records which expose the previous Administration’s pursuit of an extreme ‘climate’ treaty, one that the new Administration has expressly rejected,” Hardin added. Tillerson, a former CEO for Exxon, was a supporter of the international treaty and believed it was an effective diplomatic tool.

White House adviser Jared Kushner was also in favor of staying in the agreement nearly 200 nations forged in 2015 to prevent the Earth’s temperature from exceeding 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kushner and Tillerson eventually lost out to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Trump’s strategic adviser, Steve Bannon, both of whom lobbied the president to leave the 194-member deal. Pruitt believed nixing the accord allows Trump to make permanent executive orders rolling back Obama-era climate regulations.

Tillerson, for his part, indicated in March that he would support the deal if Trump could reduce some of the objectives hammered out during the agreement. He told a congressional hearing earlier this month that Trump’s decision to back out did not alter his previous support for the wide-ranging deal.

Chris Horner, a senior attorney with E&E Legal, told reporters in May that, “President Trump should view State’s input here with great suspicion, taking note of its record on this matter.”

Read more at Daily Caller

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

June 22, 2017 at 01:27PM