Bat flight height monitored from wind masts predicts mortality risk at wind farms
2017
Roemer, Charlotte | Disca, Thierry | Coulon, Aurélie | Bas, Yves | Centre d'Ecologie et des Sciences de la COnservation (CESCO) ; Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) ; Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro) | Biotope [Mèze]
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. Bat fatalities by collision or barotrauma at wind farms currently raise high conservation concerns. In many countries, pre-installation acoustic surveys are mandatory in order to assess the impacts of wind farm projects. In this purpose, the use of wind masts to estimate bat activity and hence predict collision risk is highly recommended by conservation committees worldwide. Yet, the degree to which collisions may be predicted from acoustic monitoring at wind masts has been strongly debated. To assess this relationship, microphone arrays were installed on wind masts in order to record and locate bat activity on the vertical axis during 3,260 nights. For each species, we also calculated a collision susceptibility index, based on fatality data gathered in the literature and corrected for species abundance. We demonstrate that the collision susceptibility index is correlated with the percentage of bat passes at blade height. 27 28
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