Do Wind Turbines Really Kill Birds?

Image Gallery Scientists and the wind industry are trying to reach a consensus on wind turbines' impact on birds and bats. ISTOCKPHOTO/DEBRA FEINMAN

The debate has stewed for years: Do wind turbines really deserve the nickname “bird cuisinarts,” or has the problem been blown out of proportion by overly concerned wildlife conservationists? 

We’re on the verge of a renewable energy revolution, and the wind industry is anxious to commence full-scale development. But conservationists are warning that more attention to wildlife impact is needed to ensure that the quest for clean power doesn’t do unintentional harm to wildlife. 

There is much yet to learn about the issue — why do birds and bats collide with turbines? What can be done to avoid these collisions? Is there really a problem at all? While many studies have been conducted, they’re quickly becoming outdated. New research is underway (see “To Learn More” at the end of this article), and as we eagerly await the results, we attempted to gain a better understanding by talking to conservation and wind industry experts who have studied the evolving relationship between wind turbines and avian wildlife. 

Laurie Jodziewicz, communications and policy specialist for the American Wind Energy Association 

What are your views on the severity of the wind industry’s impact on birds, bats and other wildlife?  

LJ: The wind industry takes any potential impacts to wildlife and its habitat very seriously. When many people think of wind turbines and bird fatalities, Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California usually comes to mind, where unfortunately a large number of birds have died. This facility was the first commercial wind project here in the United States and was installed without understanding that there might be impacts to the raptor population in the area. Today, we wouldn’t construct a project in that same area, and subsequent projects did a much better job at considering impacts to birds before construction began. These pre-construction studies help us better understand how to mitigate impacts and are now part and parcel of the development process. 

Outside of Altamont Pass, we haven’t seen any projects that have significant impacts on birds. Unfortunately, birds collide with many things — often stationary objects — and we aren’t seeing any big mortality events at wind facilities like you see at communication towers. Even if we got 100 percent of our electricity from wind turbines, bird mortality wouldn’t be even close to that which is caused by communication towers, buildings, automobiles or even cats. 

It’s a different story with bats. A significant number of bats have been killed at a location in West Virginia, which we were not expecting. We here at the American Wind Energy Association partnered with Bat Conservation International, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to create the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative. We’re looking at tools such as ultrasonic sound to warn bats and direct them away from the turbines. Implementing small changes with low economic impact to a project might be the answer for some locations with high mortality rates.