Tucker County, W.Va., Wind Turbine Blades Kill 2,000 Bats Yearly
By Jim Balow, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. -- May 9
The whirling blades of the 44 wind turbines atop Backbone Mountain in Tucker County killed more than 2,000 bats and nearly 200 birds last year, according to estimates from researchers hired to study bird and bat deaths at the site.
"It's by far the biggest bat mortality event I know of worldwide, and,
as far as I know, the biggest mortality event of any animal," said Merlin
Tuttle, director of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas.
Tuttle has been studying bats for 45 years and founded the research group 22
years ago. He read the February report, "A Study of Bird and Bat Collision
Fatalities at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center, Tucker County, West
Virginia." He's trying to raise money to conduct a follow-up study this
year.
Tuttle and other critics have questions about the methodology and conclusions
of the first study. He thinks the number of estimated dead bats, as alarming as
it already is, could easily be twice as high.
"The reality, I think, is closer to 4,000," Tuttle said this week.
"I believe that to be the consensus of other experts. One of the things
experts have said: This sampling wouldn't pass scientific peer review."
As required by the state Public Service Commission, the wind power site
owners, FPL Energy, hired a consulting firm to study bird and bat deaths in the
first year after the turbines went into operation. They hired Paul Kerlinger of
Curry & Kerlinger LLC, who has done similar studies at a number of wind
power sites across the country.
Kerlinger designed the study and hired Jessica Kerns, a doctoral candidate at
the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science Appalachian
Laboratory in Potomac, Md., to do most of the field work.
Between April 4 and Nov. 11, 2003, Kerns and an assistant searched the site
36 times, mainly in the spring and fall. Because it normally took two days to
search all 44 towers, they spent 61 days in the field. Rounds were spaced about
nine days apart in the spring, seven days in the fall.
They walked concentric circles around each turbine and two weather towers,
usually just after dawn, looking for dead birds and bats on the ground. They
found 69 birds and 475 bats, which they picked up, bagged, froze and sent off
for identification. (The species and numbers of dead birds and bats found are
shown in tables accompanying this article.)
Most of the birds killed were small common migrant songbirds, including 21
red-eyed vireos.
Very small numbers of other bird species were killed, usually just one or two
-- a robin here, an indigo bunting there, one red-tailed hawk and two turkey
vultures.
Researchers found 33 dead birds on one night. They learned that someone had
left on bright sodium vapor lights outside an electrical substation on a foggy
night, which they believe attracted birds to their deaths. They discounted those
results and warned people to keep the lights off.
Seven species of bats were identified, none of them endangered.
Next, based on the samples, the researchers tried to estimate the total bird
kill over the entire year. They performed a searcher efficiency test, where
volunteers put out random bird carcasses to see how many the searchers could
find -- about one in four.
They also did a test to estimate how may dead birds got carried off or eaten
by predators. They put all those results into a formula to extrapolate total
kill numbers.
Kerns, a biologist who is doing her Ph.D. dissertation on the Mountaineer
site, said she is more concerned about the bat kills than the birds. "The
birds were pretty minimal ... when you consider the large-scale impacts
elsewhere, like windows and cats," she said.
"Are 150 significant? Red-eyed vireos make up one-half of the deaths.
The rest are one or two per species. Red-eyed vireos tend to hit the turbines. I
don't know why. Maybe it's the higher population.
"I don't like to find 500 bats. It was quite a surprise. When we started
seeing bats last fall, we started putting out feelers to other wind facilities.
Is that significant? We don't know. Most of the bat populations are in the
hundreds of thousands or millions."
Paul Kerlinger, the designer of the study, said he's been doing bird/turbine
research for 10 years. He said the results of the Mountaineer study are
"pretty much what I expected with respect to birds. It doesn't appear there
were significant bird impacts.
"With bats, I did not expect the numbers," he said. "I'm not a
bat expert. At other sites, the numbers are not large...
"I don't like the fact these projects kill birds, but it's not
biologically significant. People say 'How do you know?' I say 'show me the
numbers.'
"Bats? I really don't know the answer to that. I'm not a bat
expert."
Environmentalists in West Virginia are divided on their support of wind
energy.
Some say the towers are ugly and a threat to wildlife. Others view it as an
alternative, non-polluting energy source.
The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, after much debate, agreed not to
fight a proposed wind project in 2002, but asked the Public Service Commission
to set up a process for determining good sites.
Some of its members have formed splinter groups to oppose wind energy
projects.
Peter Shoenfeld, chairman of the Conservancy's wind energy committee, serves
on the technical review committee of the Mountaineer bat and bird study.
"I just don't think the problem with birds amounts to anything compared
to large mortality that occurs all the time -- running into windows, running
into cars," he said.
A national study in 2001 said between 60 million and 80 million birds die
after hitting vehicles and at least 98 million die after crashing into buildings
or windows in the United States alone.
"With bats, there does appear to be a serious problem," Shoenfeld
said. "I'm not in a position to say how serious."
Shoenfeld, a semi-retired mathematician, questioned the study's methodology.
"I was concerned about the sampling issues, the extrapolating." He
said the number of birds found -- 36, not counting the one-time incident -- is
too small a sample. He wondered why researchers didn't do a separate predator
test for bats."
He provided follow-up projections that show the bat kill could be twice as
high -- 4,000 -- using formulas used by other scientists.
"Something that's gone on through the history of the project, I expect
there will be unfair criticism of the report."
Unfair or not, after hearing a reporter was writing about the study, two
people called the Sunday Gazette-Mail to offer their opinions.
Dan Boone, who identified himself as a wildlife biologist who owns a farm in
Garrett County, Md., questioned the estimate of about 2,000 dead bats.
"That in my opinion is a grossly underestimated figure.
"The issue is what is the impact from these facilities if they're to be
located on these ridges, and the failure to do studies before construction. The
industry's own guidelines call for preconstruction studies of wildlife
impact."
Boone noted that the PSC has issued permits for at least two, even larger,
wind power facilities in West Virginia before the results of the Mountaineer
study were known.
"That's not to say these facilities can't be built. We need to be more
judicious in siting facilities."
Linda Cooper of Morgantown, a member of a new multistate group called
Citizens for Responsible Windpower, said the group was formed to ensure that
wind projects, when built, are done responsibly.
Like Boone, she said she feels the Mountaineer study methodology was flawed.
"The level of independence is subject to question. There was no peer
review, no statistical analysis. The sampling frequency was inadequate.
"I'm a researcher in human health. I know about the scientific method.
If this is the best that can be done, we're really in trouble.
"The point I'd like to make, the turbines are built on what is
considered to be a major [bird] flyway. Others are planned in a flyway. We
currently have no siting regulations. It's asking a lot of the public to finance
projects in a major tourism resource without siting regulations.
"It's difficult," Cooper said. "Wind power has divided the
environmental community. To say this is the best solution, that it's something
to embrace, is not something we should be doing."
Steve Stengel, a spokesman for FPL Energy in Juno Beach, Fla., said the
study's technical review committee met three or four times to provide peer
review of the protocol and results of the study.
Members included people from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and West
Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
"You can look at it two ways. If you look at the number of collisions of
birds, I think you will find the Mountaineer facility is probably consistent
with other facilities across the country. We're always looking at ways to reduce
collisions.
"Clearly the number of bats was higher than what you'd like to
see," Stengel said. "We're committed to finding out more about
bat-turbine interaction."
More bat research planned this year
"We're going to continue to study bat-turbine interaction at the
Mountaineer facility, specifically this fall," Stengel said. "We're
still finalizing our plan. Our study will focus on bats this year."
FPL Energy hosted a two-day conference of bat experts in February to discuss
the problem at Mountaineer and other sites. As a result, Tuttle, of Bat
Conservation International, and other bat scientists announced an
industry-funded alliance to study the problem.
Tuttle said he's trying to raise $150,000 to fund research this summer and
fall in West Virginia. "FPL and us are trying to find a solution. We're
trying to determine what a proper mortality study should be.
"We'll be going from weekly to daily searches. We need to correlate
kills with fog, weather and insect catches to determine what is killing bats on
our ridgetops. We have to ask: Are we attracting them in? Are we sonically
attracting them? Are insects attracting them?"
He hopes to include radar tests. "I have a commitment from a world
leading radar technologist who will be there for a week."
The dead-bat searches may begin in late July, he said. Last year, researches
missed several weeks of the prime bat migration season.
"We didn't know how big an issue bats were until last fall," Tuttle
said. "Mortality [elsewhere] was so low. Bat searches were so scanty, and
done at two-week intervals."
Bats aren't as well loved as birds, but maybe they should be, Tuttle says.
"Bats are as important at night as birds are by day. They just didn't get
protected by the migratory act." Some bird species are protected by the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
"Bats are the primary predator of pests that cost farms and forests
billions of dollars of damage annually."
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