Bat Conservation International has published an extensive article about how wind turbines affect bat population. Read the article!
1/05--We have had correspondence from local residents on what it is like to live with the 44 turbines on Backbone Mountain that has been sent to editors of WV papers. Since many have asked us these same questions, we hope they choose to share them with the public. Read one letter to the editor which was published in Huntington's Herald Dispatch.
"We are dismayed to learn that no more studies of bird mortality will be done at this site at all, and that the bat study planned by Bat Conservation International will not begin before late July…after theJuly -- after the critical maternity season for bats has past. "
This document is Adobe PDF format; click/right click here to view/download the full article.
Funded by Florida Electric and Power, the owners of the Mountaineer wind plant on Backbone Mountain in Tucker County, WV, the following report is the stubect of much controversy. Questions are being raised about not only the credibility of the protocol utilized but also about the total scientific nature of the study and the basis of its conclusions.
This document is Adobe PDF format; it is also very large (2MB) and will take a long time on a dial-up connection; click/right click here to view/download the full article.
The total number of bat carcasses found from April until November 2003 at the WV wind plant (Mountaineer Wind Energy Center) stands at 475. This total resulted from collisions with the string of 44 345-ft-tall turbines placed atop a prominent Appalachian ridgeline in WV and represents perhaps the greatest wildlife kill associated with a wind plant anywhere in the world (though it's possible that the infamous Altamont Pass area in CA with its 5000 turbines may be close in terms of cumulative annual impact).
This document is Adobe PDF format; click/right click here to view/download the full article.