Canadian Wind Turbine Kills 10 Birds and Bats a Day
Friday, August 06, 2010

Not all renewable energy sources are completely environmentally friendly. For instance, Canada’s Wolfe Island Eco-Power Centre2, the country’s second largest wind farm, has demonstrated itself to be a killer of birds and bats.
The first study of the 86 wind turbines found they killed 45 birds and 45 bats over a two-month period (May-June 2009). A second report (covering July-December 2009) documented 602 bird and 1,270 bat fatalities, or about three bird kills and seven bat kills a day. A third study (of the farm’s first eight months of operation) uncovered 1,962 bird and bat deaths, for a daily average of eight a day. Thirty-three different bird species were included in the fatality report.
In California, so many birds, including dozens of golden eagles, have collided with wind turbine blades at the Altamont Pass wind farm that it gained the nickname “Cuisinart of the Air.”
Wind energy proponents point out that far more birds are killed by power lines, pesticides and automobiles than by turbines, and that more recent turbines have been designed to be more bird and bat friendly.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Birds, Bats, and the Trade-Offs of Wind Power (by Diane Katz, Fraser Forum) (pdf)
Wolfe Island Ecopower® Centre Post-Construction Followup Plan Bird and Bat Resources (Stantec Consulting) (pdf)
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