Division of Migratory Birds, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of the Interior, Hadley, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 28;15(8):e0238034. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238034. eCollection 2020.
Wind energy offers substantial environmental benefits, but wind facilities can negatively impact wildlife, including birds and bats. Researchers and managers have made major efforts to chronicle bird and bat mortality associated with wind facilities, but few studies have examined the patterns and underlying mechanisms of spatial patterns of fatalities at wind facilities. Understanding the horizontal fall distance between a carcass and the nearest turbine pole is important in designing effective search protocols and estimating total mortality. We explored patterns in taxonomic composition and fall distance of bird and bat carcasses at wind facilities in the Northeastern United States using publicly available data and data submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service under scientific collecting and special purpose utility permits for collection and study of migratory birds. Forty-four wind facilities reported 2,039 bird fatalities spanning 128 species and 22 facilities reported 418 bat fatalities spanning five species. Relative to long-distance migratory birds, short-distance migrants were found farther from turbines. Body mass of birds and bats positively influenced fall distance. Turbine size positively influenced fall distance of birds and bats when analyzed collectively and of birds when analyzed separately from bats. This suggests that as turbines increase in size, a greater search radius will be necessary to detect carcasses. Bird and bat fall distance distributions were notably multimodal, but only birds exhibited a high peak near turbine bases, a novel finding we attribute to collisions with turbine poles in addition to blades. This phenomenon varied across bird species, with potential implications for the accuracy of mortality estimates. Although pole collisions for birds is intuitive, this phenomenon has not been formally recognized. This finding may warrant an updated view of turbines as a collision threat to birds because they are a tall structure, and not strictly as a function of their motion.
风能具有显著的环境效益，但风力设施可能会对野生动物产生负面影响，包括鸟类和蝙蝠。研究人员和管理者已经做出了巨大努力来记录与风力设施相关的鸟类和蝙蝠死亡率，但很少有研究探讨风力设施内死亡事件的空间模式和潜在机制。了解尸体与最近的涡轮机杆之间的水平坠落距离对于设计有效的搜索协议和估计总死亡率非常重要。我们利用公开数据和根据科学收集和特殊用途公用事业许可证向美国鱼类和野生动物服务局提交的数据，在美国东北部的风力设施中探索了鸟类和蝙蝠尸体的分类组成和坠落距离模式。44 个风力设施报告了 2039 只鸟类死亡，涉及 128 个物种，22 个设施报告了 418 只蝙蝠死亡，涉及 5 个物种。与长距离候鸟相比，短距离候鸟离涡轮机更远。鸟类和蝙蝠的体重对坠落距离有正向影响。当综合分析涡轮机大小对鸟类和蝙蝠坠落距离的影响时，以及单独分析鸟类和蝙蝠时，涡轮机大小对鸟类的坠落距离有正向影响。这表明随着涡轮机尺寸的增加，需要更大的搜索半径才能检测到尸体。鸟类和蝙蝠的坠落距离分布明显呈多峰型，但只有鸟类在涡轮机底座附近出现了一个很高的峰值，这是一个新的发现，我们认为这是除了叶片之外与涡轮机杆碰撞的结果。这种现象在不同的鸟类物种中有所不同，这可能对死亡率估计的准确性产生影响。虽然鸟类与杆碰撞是直观的，但这种现象尚未得到正式认可。这一发现可能需要对涡轮机作为鸟类碰撞威胁的观点进行更新，因为它们是一种高大的结构，而不仅仅是其运动的功能。
