The mystery was alarming to wildlife experts: large numbers of dead bats appearing at wind farms, often with no visible signs of injury. Researchers now think they know one reason: Wind turbines cause bats' lungs to explode. More specifically, a sudden drop in air pressure created by the blades can cause fatal internal hemorrhaging, researchers at the University of Calgary said in a study. The toll taken on bats highlights a delicate balance facing the wind industry-how to be "green" without causing other unintended environmental consequences.

Wendy Perrone, executive director of the Three Rivers Avian Center in Brooks, W.Va., said Friday that she had not seen all the details about the project, but there are some concerns. "The mountain range is a migration route used for many decades and centuries....from butterflies to bats up to and including eagles," she said. Windmill projects have a potential for killing bats. Why this happens is not yet clear, Perrone said.

Wind energy developers in New York now have guidelines on how to survey potential turbine sites for their impact on birds and bats. Earlier this month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued its advice regarding how to minimize damage to bat and bird habitats. "These guidelines set forth DEC's recommendations to commercial wind energy developers on how to characterize bird and bat resources at on-shore wind energy sites and how to estimate and document impacts resulting from the construction and operation of these projects."

Wind turbines could continue to sprout along the state's Appalachian ridgetops, as state regulators approved a project on the Randolph/Barbour County border in November. The same company applied in December to build a project in Grant County, while another developer announced plans in January for a project near Keyser. Industry growth may be slowing, however, as the national economic recession dries up the investment capital needed to build new projects.

While planning to harvest the wind, the Hazleton City Authority wants to protect bats. The threat to bats will be weighed as the authority continues planning for a wind turbine that could provide electricity to its water treatment plant on Route 424. "There are rare species of bats in the area. There has been some concern with wind projects and bats across the country," Jay Carlis, marketing director for a company developing the wind turbine, said.

Birds are not being harmed by turbines though some bat populations are being affected, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and wind-energy companies indicate in their first annual report. It's too soon to draw any conclusions, said Tracey Librandi Mumma, a state wildlife biologist and wind energy project coordinator who worked on the study. ..."Oh my gosh, migratory bats are being killed in great numbers," Mumma said, recalling her initial reaction. ...Veterinarian Dr. Jeffrey Payne of Berlin is skeptical of large-scale wind farms and fears they will have a detrimental impact on wildlife and habitat. And while he appreciates that studies are being done, he's not satisfied that they are reporting the full depth of the situation.

The Minerals Management Service's 800 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind was released on Friday and in a largely favorable review found nearly all impacts to be negligible or minor. The few exceptions, where the 130 turbine wind farm would potentially or certainly have moderate to major impact were on birds, especially marine birds such as terns or sea ducks, on navigation and safety of recreational or commercial fishing boats, although those effects could be mitigated, and on visual resources of Nantucket Sound.

New research shows that the study of bat mortality at wind turbines should be the primary ecological concern for developers. ...TransAlta has about 189 MW of wind farms operating in southern Alberta and another 162 MW under construction. By analyzing specimens found on one of TransAlta's farms, Robert Barclay, a biological sciences professor at the university, discovered that the vast majority of bats died not as a result of colliding into the turbines, but as a result of a sudden drop in air pressure in the airspace around the turbines - which destroys their lungs.

Kunz, an internationally known bat researcher and director of BU’s Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, said wind turbines annually kill many raptors as well as tens of thousands of bats in the United States. Since these turbines have been promoted as an answer to America’s energy woes, Kunz called for more research into the environmental effects of wind power. He also warned that high numbers of bat fatalities may cause populations of insects to increase dramatically. ...Unfortunately, Kunz said, many power companies refuse to fund research on the impacts of wind farms and some even deny scientists access to turbines to count bird and bat fatalities.

The presence of the federally-endangered Indiana bat may delay plans to install wind turbines in southern Logan County, but shouldn't have an impact on Champaign County, said a wind company representative Friday. "We are aware of the bat being found and we're working closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources," said Michael Speerschneider with Everpower Renewables.

That summer in Delaware, Bluewater Wind finalized its contract to build a wind farm of 70, 130-meter-tall turbines 13 miles off the coast of Delaware. After a 59 percent rate hike in state energy prices, state legislators passed House Bill 6. This consumer retail act mandated the creation of a new power plant within the state of Delaware. ...According to the [Bluewater] Web site, "There were no significant negative impacts found on fish, flora and fauna." Delaware Audubon Society Conservation Group is showcased in supporting the project, saying it's safe for birds. ...[Thomas Kunz] says there is evidence suggesting that the offshore wind turbines Bluewater proposed to build would attract bats, causing them to die.

Ongoing studies of birds, marine mammals and sea turtles off the Jersey Shore have found an abundance of life in an area where hundreds of wind turbines could be spinning by 2020, participants in a public meeting said today. ..."We're trying to figure out where are the areas of sensitive habitat, if you will, areas that perhaps we should think twice about or avoid before we build something," he said. "The objective here is to try and steer these facilities to areas where impacts will be reduced."

Three environmental groups said Wednesday afternoon that they have obtained federal government records that show that the proposed site of the Shaffer Mountain Wind Project outside Ogletown is indisputably occupied habitat of the endangered Indiana bat, and that habitat used by the species already has been illegally destroyed.

A way to reduce the high number of deaths of migratory bats at wind turbine sites may lie in a groundbreaking study at Iberdrola Renewables' Casselman Wind Power Project in Somerset County. During the study, conducted at the 23-turbine project from late July to early October, selected wind turbines were stopped during low wind conditions to determine whether shutting down the big blades during low power production periods would reduce bat deaths while having a minimal impact on power generation. ..."The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned that several species of bats, including potentially endangered bats, are killed each year by wind turbines," said Alex Hoar, the service's northeast coordinator for review of wind power projects.

In a first-of-its-kind study, the owners of a Somerset County wind farm and an independent conservation group are joining forces to study the effects of turbines on bats. Bat Conservation International is conducting a controlled experiment in which select turbines at Iberdrola Renewables' Casselman Wind Power Project were shut down during certain wind conditions from July through earlier this month. It is the first study in the country to look at the impact of temporarily stopping the turbines on reducing bat deaths.

A Northumberland County firm has backed off a plan to build wind turbines on South Mountain in eastern Lebanon County. ...But birds and bats got in the way of the plans, said Justin R. Dunkelberger, chief executive for Penn Wind. He explained that the South Mountain site is part of a bird-migration path and is also frequented by bats. "As a wind developer, we have to be concerned with birds and bats," Dunkelberger said. "We want to be responsible developers."

Bats and wind turbines make a bad mix. In fact, bats have become an unexpected casualty in the burgeoning wind-power industry, with several thousand bats killed by turbines each year in North America. Now studies are being conducted at the future site of a Peace region wind farm in order to save bats from dropping dead near the whirling blades. ...Most of the wind-farm research has been focused on birds, and little is known about the effect on bats, although new studies are beginning to yield clues on how to minimize the impact of the wind farms on the tiny flying animals.

Bats may never find wind farms as friendly as belfries, but a three-month study in northeast British Columbia is designed to make the power-generating turbines at least somewhat less deadly. Monitoring devices installed by AltaGas at the site of the proposed Bear Mountain Wind Farm have been recording data on the population and migratory routes of bats in the area since July. In later stages of development, the research is intended to help how the company can make its turbines to more bat-friendly.

Windfarms are blamed for the deaths of large numbers of birds, including the threatened hen harrier, that crash into the spinning blades. But, what's now emerging is that bats are probably more at risk than birds. Up to now little has been known about the effects of windfarms on bats. Something that has mystified researchers, however, is that bats found dead around turbines had no visible injuries. So, are windfarms killing bats without touching them? It seems they are. ..."If bat fatalities continue this has the potential to be really serious. The problem is likely to get much worse with the proliferation of turbines, not just from large power companies erecting them but private individuals doing so as well," Ms Baerwald pointed out.

While the open sky is big enough for 400-foot-high wind turbines and migratory birds, animal conservationists are airing their concerns about the threat windmills pose to wildlife. "Any place thinking about installation (of wind turbines) should take years studying the issue," Keith Bildstein, director of conservation science at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, said Friday. "That is a prescription the wind industry apparently finds distasteful." Bildstein and other local conservationists and bird-watchers say the wind industry fails to adequately study bird migration patterns before wind projects break ground.