Causing an animal to become uncomfortable, disoriented, and unable to find food is typically viewed as cruel behavior. But when it comes to bats, researchers are doing just that-and it may save their lives. Scientists are testing a new device that may decrease insect-eating bats' attractions to wind turbines. The instrument emits ultrasound, or sound with a frequency greater than humans can hear, but is audible to certain animals like dogs and bats. Over the next several weeks, scientists will see if ultrasound deters the flying mammals from going near turbines on wind farms in Oregon and New York. If the tests are successful, the speaker-sized devices could be attached to wind turbines to repel bats, which are frequently killed at night by the swiftly rotating blades.

While corporate, municipal and utility interests favoring wind turbine development tend to minimize potential damage to birds, no convincing scientific studies support arguments that wind turbines in migration corridors are safe. Quite the contrary, mounting evidence suggests birds and bats are at risk of fatal collisions with turbine blades. In recent testimony before the U.S. Congress, Dr. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy concluded that by the year 2030 as many as 1.8 million birds per year could be killed by wind turbines.

Jesse Ausubel, a professor of environmental science and director of the Human Environment programme at Rockefeller University in New York, found that enormous stretches of countryside would have to be converted into intensive farmland or developed with buildings and access roads for renewable energy plants to make a significant contribution to global energy demands.

Yet when the National Planning Committee (NPC) approved plans for building a wind turbine farm directly on the path of the migration flyway, SPNI came out in strong opposition..."Of the 90,000 birds migrating over, the flight path of roughly 10,000 passed directly through the air space where the wind turbines are planned. Obviously these birds would have been in great danger of collision with the blades," says Alon. Weekly surveys were conducted during the winter, and daily migration surveys resumed on March 1st, 2005. "During the spring of 2005, bird observers counted another 200,000 plus birds, mostly White Storks of which a minimum of 15,000 crossed over the proposed turbine farm within the range of the blades.

Last month the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the bald and golden eagles from the federal Endangered Species List. While eagle populations have grown in every state, we also learned last month that five species of common birds in Pennsylvania are declining at an alarming rate. According to Audubon Pennsylvania, the golden-winged warbler population has declined an astounding 98 percent since 1967, followed by the Eastern meadowlark (86 percent), wood thrush (62 percent), American bittern (59 percent) and ruffed grouse (22 percent). Three of the species depend on forest habitats, one lives in wetlands and the fifth resides in agricultural areas. Five different birds, three different habitats and they are all suffering. That's not good.

According to a May 3, 2007 report by the National Research Council (NRC), the federal government should develop national guidelines to maximize the benefits and minimize the hazards of wind farms. Such federal guidelines, according to the NRC, would help guide local and regional governments in devising wind-energy projects that take into consideration their effects on wildlife, the environment, and scenic landscapes, along with devising guidelines to develop the most effective devices to produce electrical energy.

A House committee chairman from a coal-producing state backed away Wednesday from requiring regulations for the wind energy industry to protect birds and bats, rules the industry said would halt development of wind farms as an alternative to coal. Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahal, D-W.Va., had put into an energy bill a requirement that the Interior Department regulate the siting and operation of energy wind turbines to ensure the safety of wildlife. His action unleashed intense lobbying by the wind industry and renewable energy advocates, who argued that such restrictions would stop wind farm development at a time when wind is viewed as the most viable renewable alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear power for producing electricity.

Birds and bats have a powerful advocate in the new Congress. It's making people in the wind energy industry nervous. Representative Nick Rahall is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Rahall is pushing legislation that would more strictly regulate wind energy to protect the birds and bats that are killed when they fly into wind turbines.

For many environmentalists, the modern wind turbine is a symbol of a cleaner energy future, and building wind farms as quickly as possible represents one of America's best hopes to fight global warming. But for many residents of mountain communities in the Appalachians where most of the nation's wind development east of the Mississippi has happened or is now planned, industrial wind turbines represent something less optimistic: the spoiling of pristine wilderness for little benefit to anyone except wind developers themselves. Now, wind opponents can call on a new report by the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences to help them make their case.

The wind-energy industry is objecting to federal legislation that seeks to protect birds and bats from wind turbines, arguing the measure would place unnecessary burdens on clean-energy projects. The Energy Policy Reform and Revitalization Act, a wide-ranging energy bill introduced this month, would create new standards for the placement and construction of turbines and mandate post-construction monitoring of their effects on wildlife.

A scientific panel has concluded that new wind farms could generate up to 7 percent of U.S. electricity in 15 years. That's the positive side. The negative side is not good news for our fine feathered friends.

Wildlife advocates hoping for a stronger voice in regulations concerning wind energy development on land and sea are expected to testify Wednesday at a hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee in Washington, D.C. While the Cape Wind proposal isn't specifically on the agenda, you can bet that folks on both side of the proposal will be interested in the aftermath of the hearing. At issue will be the proposed "Energy Policy Reform and Revitalization Act of 2007," filed by U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.

Wind farms do kill animals in flight, but not always the obvious ones. Bats, not birds, appear to be the main victims of land-based wind turbines in the US, according to a report by the US National Research Council.

Each year, an estimated 2.5 billion birds are also killed inadvertently in the U.S. due to human activities. Such bird mortality includes collisions with lighted buildings and communication towers, pesticide poisoning, and free-roaming cat predation. Two million acres of bird habitat are also lost to development annually. New concerns over the potential impacts of climate change, especially among coastal, alpine, and Arctic bird species; as well as the spread of corn for biofuels which may replace vital bird habitats; and poorly placed wind farms that can kill thousands of birds are also causing serious concern. The combination of mass mortality and serious habitat loss poses a grave risk to many bird species across all regions and habitats.

Ducks in the Dakotas, tanagers in Texas and grosbeaks along the Gulf of Mexico could all be hit by the rapid growth of wind power unless the renewable electricity farms are carefully sited, experts said. "The first three rules of avoiding impacts with wind turbines are always going to be location, location, location," Mike Daulton, a spokesman with the National Audubon Society, said in a telephone interview. Clean-energy wind farms are cropping up rapidly in the United States on rising concerns about greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emissions and flat output of natural gas, which fires most of the power plants built since the 1990s. U.S. wind power is expected to increase by 26 percent in installed generation this year, after similar growth last year. A study by the National Academy of Sciences released late this week found that wind energy could reduce the energy sector's carbon dioxide emissions by 4.5 percent by 2020. But federal and state governments should take environmental impacts of wind energy more seriously as part of the planning, locating and regulating turbines, it said.

Appalachian states lack strong and detailed guidelines to regulate the continued growth of wind power facilities along the Mid-Atlantic highlands, according to a new study by the National Academy of Sciences. A team of academy experts concluded that wind power can help offset the greenhouse emissions caused by coal and other fossil-fuel energy sources, but the projected growth of wind power in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania creates potential threats to bird and bat populations that are not fully understood, the academy study found. Windmill "farms" also can cause other environmental problems and create legitimate aesthetic concerns for local communities - ranging from damage to scenic vistas to noise and "shadow flicker," a strobe-like effect created by rotating turbines, the report found. "The United States is in the early stages of learning how to plan for and regulate wind-energy facilities," says the report, compiled by the National Academy's National Research Council. The report said the cumulative effects of continued growth in wind power are unclear, and that further study is needed.

WASHINGTON - An unusual coalition of conservationists and coal advocates told Congress on Tuesday that before the nation continues its rapid expansion of wind power, an assessment is needed of how many bats and birds are maimed and killed by wind turbines' blades. That study should be followed up with regulations to protect those species, witnesses told a House Natural Resources subcommittee.

An environmental group wants Congress to protect birds as part of new tax credits for wind energy currently under consideration. The tax-writing committees on both sides of the hill are working on legislation to extend production tax credits for wind power and other renewable energy. Wind power advocates are pressing for the extension of the 1.9-cents-per-kilowatt-hour credit, which they say is crucial for projects to attract funding. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy will ask Congress today to be sure to link any federal tax credit or subsidy to a requirement that companies mitigate harm to federally protected migratory birds. Fry is one of several bird advocates testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee today on wind power's effects on birds and bats. ‘Any renewal of the production tax credit for wind energy should include provisions that require developers follow best management practices in avoiding and minimizing bird and wildlife impacts, Fry said in a statement released yesterday.

In summary, there has been a great deal of discussion and very little action on the part of industry and the federal government to resolve bird and wildlife issues. Bird populations at greatest risk include birds of prey and grassland songbirds.