Bat flight height monitored from wind masts predicts mortality risk at wind farms

Charlotte Roemer (1, 2) , Thierry Disca (3) , Aurélie Coulon (1, 2) , Yves Bas (1, 2)

1 CESCO - Centre d'Ecologie et des Sciences de la COnservation
2 CEFE - Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
3 Biotope [Mèze]

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

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Zoologie des vertébrés; Ecologie, Environnement; Ingénierie de l'environnement

Charlotte Roemer, Thierry Disca, Aurélie Coulon, Yves Bas. Bat flight height monitored from wind masts predicts mortality risk at wind farms. Biological Conservation, 2017, 215, pp.116-122. ⟨10.1016/j.biocon.2017.09.002⟩. ⟨hal-02563981⟩