Wind Turbines & Bird Migration

According to studies done by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) wind turbines kill between 140,000-500,000 birds between 2007 and 2017.  As the number of wind turbines being built continues to increase, the FWS estimates that 1.4 million birds may be killed every year in the future. Birds are not the only species impacted by the wind turbines.  Every year hundreds of thousands of bats are also killed by wind turbines, which has a major impact on crop production due to the increase in the number of insects eating crops as bat populations are decreased by wind turbine deaths.  Wind energy companies around the world are employing different strategies to combat this problem, but the solutions heavily depend on the species in your location and the time of year due to different migration patterns of bird and bat species.

How can the number of migratory bird and bat deaths from wind turbines be reduced?

• How might the ecosystem be impacted by bird and bat deaths?
• How can we evaluate the completing societal needs for clean energy and ecosystem stability?

Students could:

• Review information detailing why wind turbines kill certain species of birds and bats. 
• Be challenged to go in depth with each species by taking a close look at when and where the species migrates, what height the species flies, the food/habitat needed for survival and why it’s important to society to keep these species populations at current levels.  
• Research how a wind turbine works, what engineers can do to wind turbines remotely (can they remotely stop them?) and what makes a wind turbine deadly to bats and birds.  
• Brainstorm what could be done to decrease the number of bird and bat deaths by wind turbines.  
• Create questions that would help them figure out whether their solution would work the best or not.  
• Review data showing how well different solutions have worked and ask students to evaluate and refine their original solution to make it better based on this data.  

• Scientific American | Bat Killings by Wind Energy Turbines Continue: Article by Scientific American detailing the efforts by wind energy companies to save bats and how well those efforts have worked.
• Pacific Standard | A New Deterrent System Could Help Save Bats From Wind Turbines: Information detailing how an acoustic device installed on wind turbines could deter bats from flying near wind turbines.
• GreenAdvantage | MidAmerican Energy: GreenAdvantage is MidAmerican Energy’s vision on how they will provide their customers with 100% renewable energy in the near future.
• MidAmerican Energy Company - Habitat Conservation Program: MidAmerican Energy’s habitat conservation program to help combat the number of birds and bats killed by their wind turbines every year.