Each year tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands [of bats] are thought to fall victim to the tall, whirling turbines. Now, footage from heat-sensitive cameras suggests one reason why. Air currents at wind turbines appear to mimic the way air flows around tall trees. Tree bats in particular use these air flows to find food, other bats and a place to roost. Following similar air flows at wind turbines may lead more tree bats than non-tree bats to their deaths, scientists suggest September 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
h/t Meatriarchy
You'd have to think David Suzuki would be upset about this but it appears he's for the bugs, it's the pesky people who are the biggest problem causing the mythical global warming.
As the wind monstrosities do their best work, killing birds, Suzuki and his ilk are flying around the country burning the stuff they're all against, telling everyone else to get back to the stone age.
A few dead ducks in a tailing pond = Proof the Oilsands must be shutdown.
Hundreds of thousands of birds and bats killed by wind turbines = The cost of progress
do the math :)
Modern day "environmentalism": Saving-the-Planet (TM), no matter the ecological disruption and millions of corpses that it will take. After all, it's all for the "green".
Bats are neither cute, fuzzy or lavable = the animal rights crowd won't be interested in saving them.
No creatures were harmed by this wind mill = the response of the environmental crowd who simply don't see what they don't want to see
We'll have to create a committee to study this in case this becomes a problem = the response of any government responsible for the wind mills.
Very interesting post Kate. Thank you.
I always suspected that it was only a matter of time before these shrines to the Green Religion were found to either interfere with wind patters, or confuse certain animals.
Bats are amazing creatures and very important to the ecosystem. Yet watch how silent the environmental movement is regarding this issue.
For maybe the last time,or not,there is no such animal as an enviromentalist.Anti-human? Yes.For the enviroment? Nope.For the grant money.
Here's some additional info that puts verified numbers on the estimates in the article above.
Wind turbines kill a rather staggering 600,000 to 900,000 bats every year, according to a new study. Dead bats have been found at almost every wind energy facility where someone has looked for them, and researchers have tried to use these numbers to estimate how many bats die every year. Mark Hayes, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado at Denver, analyzed published findings and places the number at more than 600,000. This number is probably conservative, he says in a new paper published in the December issue of the journal BioScience.
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eek-squad/wind-turbines-kill-more-600000-bats-year-what-should-we-do
DrDave is presently flying around with another one of his eco-roadshows. It would be interesting to see what he would say if confronted with the question of what he thinks about the million or so bats and birds killed by wind turbines. Perhaps a SDA member who lives near one of the cities DrDave is visiting can field this question from the audience and record his response. If he equivocates, as I expect he will do, the evidence will be even more useful.