First, just living my life in society with my senses going, i definitely get the impression wind turbines are doomsday machines to flying animals. I found that to be a rather misleading impression. A study of 58 different surveys found that the classic monopole turbines kill between 140,000 and 328,000 birds a year in collisions. A sad quantity, but minuscule compared to outdoor cats and cars. The birds are passing through or sometimes are even drawn to the lights on the turbines in foggy weather and perish.
Most states do not have protective laws to protect birds from wind farms. Also, taller wind turbines have been found more efficient, so energy companies are expected to build them taller though they also appear to kill more flying animals.
Location: Build wind farms away from cliffs and popular bird nesting grounds and out of known migratory paths.
Deterrents: Painting them colors that won’t attract insects that then attract insectivore animals. Since many birds can see ultraviolet light (the invisible to humans light your TV remote uses, for example), it can be used to make the turbines more visible and easier for birds to avoid. Some birds are attracted to blinking lights on wind turbines in fog, so changing those will help prevent depressing aerial horror stories. Other turbines emit loud noises to scare off flying animals.
Radar: Some wind farms have AI monitored radar that can stop the blades when flocks are flying towards them. Radio frequency banded birds can be detected to do the same.
Strike Detection: Some turbines are programmed to shut off if they sense their blades hitting something.
Redesigning shape: Some modern turbines are being designed more vertically, think flat kitchen mixer for a visual; that makes them less likely to strike a bird, better at absorbing kinetic energy from the wind, and smaller. Others are being built more like L shaped tunnels with nets over the ends to keep animals out.
What you can do to help flying animals more specifically is: Use less electricity. If you have access to a greener, energy source use that. Ask your representatives, and otherwise use your influence to promote regulations and systems safe for flying animals at risk of wind farming. Also report dead birds around wind turbines, if you see any. Design a safer, greener, more efficient wind harvesting device. More efficiency means we will need less of them.
After all those dangers, it could be tempting to cancel wind farming, but climate change can kill birds too, so i believe green alternatives must be explored. Also, while birds are great, they only serve as a piece of the global ecosystem.
Resources:
Note: This graph, by comparison, makes the bird fatality numbers seem small, but i consider 234,000 too many deaths of flying creatures.
Disclaimer: Other people’s websites might be worse (or better) than mine. They might have false, rude, inappropriate, or otherwise disagreeable content on them. They might have taken down their website since i last viewed it in 2020. None of those issues are my problem.
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