Researchers find that wind turbines repel bats in Finnish forests
Newswise — Wind turbines are being built at an accelerating pace, but their impact on nature and animals is poorly known. Researchers from the Universities of Turku and Helsinki have investigated the effect of wind turbines on the presence and activity of bats in boreal forests. The results clearly show that bats do not like wind turbines.
The researchers recorded the acoustic activity of bats throughout the summer at seven wind farms located in the forests of the west coast of Finland. By placing the recorders at different distances from the wind turbines, they were able to see how bat activity and presence differed both closer and further away from the turbines.
The researchers studied two groups of bats: the northern bat, which is the most common species in Finland, and the Myotis, a group of five species, including the very common Daubenton’s bat.
“Our results showed that the presence of wind turbines affected the occurrence of bats, as both studied groups were found more often further away from the wind turbines. Northern bats were driven up to 800 meters away from the wind turbines, but the negative effect of wind power was even greater than one kilometer in the Myotis species, which was the largest distance we studied,” summarizes the lead author, PhD researcher. Simon Gaultier from the University of Turku.
“Regarding the results, it is not yet clear whether the bats avoid the wind turbines themselves or the surrounding area”, explains Simon Gaultier and continues: “In Finland, building turbines in forests requires cutting down many trees and building large roads. bringing parts of the turbines to the construction sites. Bats like Myotis do not like such changes and prefer dense forests with no open areas. This may explain why they tend to avoid wind farms.”
Other explanations, such as the noise and light caused by wind turbines or the effect of these machines on insects, have been suggested as possible reasons for bats avoiding wind farms. Regardless of the actual reasons, this avoidance can drive bats away from habitats important for their locomotion or feeding. This consequence gets worse when the cumulative effect of all wind turbines already operating or planned in Finland is taken into account.
“More and more wind farms are built or planned every year, especially on the west coast, where the winds are stronger. All these future turbines will probably have the same repellent effect on bats,” says the academy researcher Thomas Lilley from the University of Helsinki, another author of the study.
Currently, up to 7 percent of Finland’s total area is affected by existing or planned wind turbines. At the same time, bat migration routes go through Western Finland, which is central for bats, but also the same area where most of the country’s wind power is planned.
As the reasons why bats avoid wind power are not yet fully understood, the authors recommend further research on the topic. They emphasize that although clean energy production is urgently needed, biodiversity must be protected at the same time.