The bald eagle recovery program in Iowa is perhaps our state’s best wildlife management success story to date, but progress is being lost due to the mass killing of bald eagles by industrial wind turbines. This conflict between industry and environment is now playing out near Fairbank, Iowa located in Fayette County, where shell companies Mason Wind (parent firm is China’s largest naval defense contractor) and Optimum Renewables (parent company is a German wind services firm) are attempting to build their wind farm in an area known for bald eagle habitats.

Impact on Bats Iowa

As for the wind turbines, any federally run turbines are required to shut down when the bats are migrating in the spring or fall, McCumber said. The base has three wind turbines that provide power to its groundwater treatment plants and two for the PAVE PAWS radar station. Typically, it’s on nights when the winds are light or nonexistent that the turbines stop spinning because the bats are likely on the move, he said.

Impact on Bats Massachusetts

On Aug. 11, a California district court overturned an FWS rule authorizing 30-year BGEPA take permits for failure to comply with NEPA. The FWS already commenced a NEPA review and aims to finalize revised regulations by 2017. This decision does not prohibit further issuance of five-year BGEPA take permits. Only one five-year permit, and no 30-year permits, has been issued to date, although several applications are pending.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats USA

Researchers and conservationists first raised the alarm about wind turbines killing bats more than a decade ago. Studies have since suggested that migratory bats, which roost in trees and fly long distances in the spring and fall, are attracted to the turbines and their towers for some reason. When they fly too close, they collide with the spinning turbine blades and are killed. Estimates of just how many bats are dying range from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Impact on Bats USA

Much of the scenic beauty for which Maine is so widely known will be despoiled. The stated 2,700-Megawatt goal of Maine’s Wind Energy Act would require as many as 1,500 wind turbines, each hundreds of feet tall, with accompanying access roads and new transmission lines, on up to 300 miles of Maine’s hills and mountains. Those transmission lines, to carry the electricity that could be provided by a single, high-quality conventional generator, will add billions of dollars to New England electric bills.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Impact on Landscape Maine

Wind-farm operations in some instances will be more complicated and costly as a result of the federal government’s announcement last week that it will list the Northern long-eared bat as a threatened species. However, more changes might be coming that could give the industry greater flexibility.

Impact on Bats USA

Listing a species as threatened means that any trafficking, injuring or killing of that animal becomes prohibited, but unlike endangered species, some exemptions can be carved out. ...Wind farms did not receive an exemption.

Impact on Bats USA New Hampshire

Listing a species as threatened means that any trafficking, injuring or killing of that animal becomes prohibited, but unlike endangered species, some exemptions can be carved out. ...Wind farms did not receive an exemption.

Impact on Bats New Hampshire USA

The 15-page opinion credits the finding by FWS "that the minimization and mitigation measures 'fully offset' the impact of the taking of Indiana bats, and thus, it was not necessary to determine if the plan was the 'maximum that can be practically implemented.'"

Impact on Bats Ohio

The Service’s three-mile setback from Great Lakes shorelines is a recommendation based on areas along the shoreline identified as having the highest habitat value for migrating and nesting birds. Hicks said the agency cannot force developers to apply for permits, but killing an eagle and not having an incidental take permit can result in prosecution. The Service’s 2012 wind energy guidelines are voluntary for developers.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Bats Michigan

“Today politics won out over science and law,” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. After heavy pushback from  the timber, oil and gas, mining, and wind-energy industries, whose activities could harm the species, the Service delayed its final decision on the bat’s designation for six months. 

Impact on Bats USA

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offered an option Thursday to protect northern long-eared bats while limiting regulatory burden on the public.

Impact on Bats USA

s if white-nose syndrome wasn’t enough, the nation’s bats have another problem: wind turbines that are becoming increasingly more common on the American landscape. For two months, Paul Cryan, a research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey, set up thermal video surveillance cameras to find out why up to 900,000 bats are killed by windmills each year.

Impact on Bats Illinois

The new paper does not attempt is to estimate the number of bat fatalities attributable to wind farms, but a report on its findings Monday in the Washington Post cited other recent research putting the number as high as 600,000 or even 900,000 annually across the United States ...It could also mean that wind farms are killing even more bats than birds, whose losses have received far more attention.

Impact on Bats USA

Twelve lifeless bodies were found near the machines at a wind farm in Benton County, Ind., during the study period between July 29 and Oct. 1 in 2012. The study was published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More dead bats is bad news, particularly at this time of year. Around the end of the month, hibernating bats will start flocking back to caverns, where a lethal disease called white-nose syndrome lurks.

Impact on Bats USA

“Bats may not have the cognitive ability to differentiate wind turbines or other tree-like structures from real trees either at a distance or at close range,” the researchers said. “The simplest explanation for bats closely approaching turbines may be that they are seeking places to roost in what they perceive as trees while migrating.”

Impact on Bats USA

“Coloradans treasure their environment. This bill will protect our sacred Bald Eagles and other bird species that currently are being killed in alarming numbers,” Senator Balmer said. “This legislation will require prudent steps renewable energy producers must take as they site and operate their facilities.”

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Colorado

The number of bats killed by wind turbines at the Spring Valley Wind Farm in 2014 has been reduced by more than 75 percent compared to the same time frame last year.

Impact on Bats Nevada

“If municipalities are going to go by avian studies that are funded by turbine developers, they’re not going to find mention of something such as this migration that has been documented since 1991. Right now, we are relying on numbers from the exact corporations that don’t want to find any dead birds, because any dead birds they find is subjected to prosecution and fines.”

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats USA Michigan

“If municipalities are going to go by avian studies that are funded by turbine developers, they’re not going to find mention of something such as this migration that has been documented since 1991. Right now, we are relying on numbers from the exact corporations that don’t want to find any dead birds, because any dead birds they find is subjected to prosecution and fines.”

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Michigan USA