The federal government will decide next month whether to allow a higher number of accidental bird and bat deaths at two Maui wind farms. Auwahi Wind Energy is asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow an “incidental take” of 140 ope’ape’a, or Hawaiian hoary bats, up from the 21 bats it’s currently allowed to take. Kaheawa Wind Power II, meanwhile, is requesting to increase its incidental take of adult hoary bats from 11 to 38 and nene from 30 to 44.

Impact on Bats Hawaii

Council planning and environmental services manager Peter Thom said DOC's submission concerned the potential effects of the wind farm on threatened indigenous species and other biodiversity. One of those species is the threatened long-tailed bat, which DOC's submission says may be at risk of colliding with the turbines, or losing feeding and breeding habitat through the wind farm. 

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Bats New Zealand

Model estimates show that the take limit of one of the species, the Hawaiian Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus semotus), has been reached due to the wind turbines causing greater fatalities than anticipated and Auwahi Wind is requesting an increased take for it. Auwahi Wind Energy, LLC is seeking approval of a major amendment to the HCP as part of the request to increase the amount of incidental Hawaiian Hoary Bat take authorized under the ITL.

Impact on Bats Hawaii

Adams said bats are being killed by the millions by wind turbines. ...the bats are drawn to the turbines, where they are either struck or killed by a low pressure field that surrounds the turbines. “When you go out and you are driving and you think ‘How majestic,’ in my head I think ‘It is a death count,’ ” Adams said. “It’s really awful.”

Impact on Bats Kansas

The federal government has charged that state officials are rushing to approve wind power projects without adequately considering environmental impacts, particularly the adverse consequences for an endangered species, the opeapea bat. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service asked the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission in a Dec. 27 letter to stop approving any new wind turbines until state and federal officials have had the chance to meet with the facility owners and review the plans.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Bats Hawaii

“How many bats are you killing?” he asked. “Why is that OK? If that’s an endangered species, why is it right to kill 40 or 60 of them?” He also questioned how the wind farm was handling the remains of the bats that had been killed. “Did you put them in garbage bags and throw them away?” he asked. “Was there any burial treatment? We treat them like human remains.”

Impact on Bats Hawaii

Director of Science Nature Conservancy in Wyoming, Holly Copeland remarked, “Over a half million birds and about a million bats, a study in 2013 by Smallwood, et al showed. And if you run those numbers out for Wyoming there are about 5000 grassland birds we would be losing every year…there was a paper that showed 20 eagles and in addition to that Duke Energy reported 52 eagles as well.”

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Wyoming

The staff of the Ohio Power Siting Board has recommended that the six wind turbines the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo) has proposed building 10 miles offshore operate only during daylight hours for 10 months out of the year while experts determine whether technology designed to detect bird and bat collisions with the turbines is effective.  LEEDCo has tried without success to negotiate a compromise.  The issue and other issues regarding sophisticated radar systems are now headed into hearings that begin Sept. 24 in Columbus. 

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Ohio

The plan is part of MidAmerican’s request for a 30-year U.S. permit to allow for an average of 10 turbine-related incidental bald eagle deaths per year across the company’s Iowa footprint.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats USA Iowa

If extrapolated to all of Britain’s wind farms it would mean 80,000 die each year from colliding with the blades. The number increased with blade length with some individual turbines responsible for the deaths of five bats each month.

Impact on Bats Europe Germany UK USA

The mystery of why more than 80,000 bats are killed by wind turbines in the UK each year may finally have been solved. Scientists found the winged creatures are naturally drawn to sources of red light – an attraction that can confuse them on migration routes.

Impact on Bats Europe Germany UK USA

“It’s a conservation conundrum,” said Phillips. “We want green energy, but are we willing to do that at the extinction of our only native land mammal?” Fish and Wildlife officials anticipate the draft of the programmatic environmental statement and each wind energy project’s habitat conservation plan will be available for public review and commentary by the end of this year.

Impact on Bats Hawaii

The Ohio Power Siting Board has recommended conditional approval of the $126 million Icebreaker six-turbine wind turbine project proposed by the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. 8 to 10 miles northwest of downtown. But the staff has included more than 34 conditions. The six-turbine wind farm is expected to look similar to this offshore wind farm near Block Island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Offshore Wind Ohio

Koch proposes shutting down wind turbines at times when bats' migration path puts them at risk from the huge, rotating blades. But if bat protection is to be taken into consideration when designing policy – on wind energy development, forestry, agriculture and the use of pesticides – solid data is essential.

Impact on Bats Germany

Southern Arizona’s only wind-energy farm is under a federal criminal investigation because its turbines killed an endangered bat and a federally protected golden eagle, law enforcement officials say. ...if the company had chosen to seek permits in advance that would have allowed it to kill a certain number of the protected species.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Arizona

“Hawaii has been through so much trial and error, and we don’t even have all the information at the table,” Tuivaiti said. “We’re still trying to figure out the population. We’re still trying to figure out about the bats themselves, and here we are just kind of playing God. . . . If we keep taking, we’re going to have nothing left.”

Impact on Bats Hawaii

The figure is scary: The approximately 6,000 wind turbines are operating in France today may have caused the death of 1.6 million bats over the period 2002-15, according to the Environment Agency and the control of energy (Ademe). 

Impact on Bats Europe

 It is not in the interests of the wind industry or Scottish Government to let the public know how many thousands of birds and bats their turbines are killing. The public will not like it and may well demand the slaughter ceases and that would mean no more turbines because it is impossible to stop.

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats UK

The OPSB postponed the adjudicatory hearing in response to a request from its staff to suspend the procedural schedule in this case to allow additional time to obtain more information from Icebreaker Windpower on the pre- and post-construction radar technology monitoring protocol selected for use at the project site for determining project impacts. 

Impact on Birds Impact on Bats Ohio

Two studies Apex Clean Energy is planning to provide to help assess how its Galloo Island Wind project could affect bats are inadequate for determining the potential impacts, argues avian advocate Clifford P. Schneider.

Impact on Bats New York