Department of Animal Genetics and Conservation, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Ciszewskiego 8, 02‑786, Warsaw, Poland.
Department of Biomedicine and Environmental Research, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Konstantynów 1J, 20-708, Lublin, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 25;14(1):25290. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-76999-2.
Wind farms are still developing dynamically worldwide, with promising prospects for further growth. Therefore, the assessment of their impact on animals has been carried out. So far, few studies have been conducted on game mammals, and their results are divergent. Previous studies on the impact of wind farms on game species were typically based on regional research covering one or, at most, several wind farms. In this study, we aimed to verify the effect of wind farms on the density of game mammals through a large-scale analysis at the country level, using lowland Poland as an example. The study was based on hunting bag data from open-field hunting districts. It covered seven game species: roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), European badger (Meles meles), European polecat (Mustela putorius), and European hare (Lepus europaeus). We used Corine Land Cover to account for differences in land cover and the area covered by wind farms in generalized linear mixed models. The study showed that in agricultural landscapes, mainly herbivorous species of game mammals were related to land cover types. These species tend to exhibit higher densities in agricultural areas containing more natural landscape features. Conversely, mesocarnivores are primarily driven by the abundance of prey with little to no observable effects from land cover types. Only roe deer and wild boar presented lower densities with an increase in the area covered by wind farms (for roe deer: estimate: - 0.05, 95% CI: - 0.1-0.0; for wild boar: estimate: - 0.03, 95% CI: - 0.11-0.05), while no effect was observed for mesocarnivores or European hare. The underlying reasons for these relationships remain unclear and require more specific studies. The uncertainty regarding the cause of the observed effects did not allow for a large-scale assessment of the impact of further wind energy development on the studied game mammals.
风力发电场在全球范围内仍在迅速发展，具有进一步增长的广阔前景。因此，对其动物影响的评估已经开展。到目前为止，对游戏哺乳动物的研究很少，而且结果也存在分歧。以前关于风力发电场对游戏物种影响的研究通常基于涵盖一个或最多几个风力发电场的区域研究。在这项研究中，我们旨在通过在国家级的大规模分析来验证风力发电场对游戏哺乳动物密度的影响，以波兰低地为例。该研究基于开放田野狩猎区的狩猎袋数据。它涵盖了七个游戏物种：狍（Capreolus capreolus）、野猪（Sus scrofa）、赤狐（Vulpes vulpes）、浣熊狗（Nyctereutes procyonoides）、獾（Meles meles）、欧洲貂（Mustela putorius）和欧洲野兔（Lepus europaeus）。我们使用科林土地覆盖来解释土地覆盖和风力发电场覆盖面积的差异，并在广义线性混合模型中进行分析。研究表明，在农业景观中，主要是食草性游戏哺乳动物物种与土地覆盖类型有关。这些物种在农业地区的密度较高，这些地区含有更多的自然景观特征。相反，中型肉食动物主要受猎物丰度的驱动，而几乎不受土地覆盖类型的影响。只有狍和野猪的密度随着风力发电场覆盖面积的增加而降低（狍：估计值：-0.05，95%置信区间：-0.1-0.0；野猪：估计值：-0.03，95%置信区间：-0.11-0.05），而中型肉食动物或欧洲野兔则没有观察到这种影响。这些关系的根本原因尚不清楚，需要更具体的研究。由于对观察到的影响的原因存在不确定性，因此无法对进一步发展风能对所研究的游戏哺乳动物的影响进行大规模评估。
