Wind Power

Anticipating increased mortality to the Endangered Roseate Tern from planned offshore wind development on the Atlantic coast, some conservation groups are asking federal agencies to take steps to protect the remaining population of these already threatened birds.

In Canada's first comprehensive analysis of wind farm casualties, researchers found that turbines were killing about 47,000 bats per year in 2013, and the number of turbines has increased more than 50 percent since that time.

In what Audubon California is calling a big win for birds, one of the wind power companies operating in the Altamont Pass near San Francisco this week announced that it was shutting down all of its older turbines, which have been proven to be a greater hazard to birds in the area.

New research released in late July by the U.S. Geological Survey indicates several species of grassland birds are impacted by wind energy facilities for years after construction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and Western Area Power Administration have published a final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), which evaluates the environmental impacts of wind energy development in the Upper Great Plains states of Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to institute a new system of pre-construction risk assessment and bird and bat mortality data collection in connection with hundreds of thousands of bird (and bat) deaths being caused by wind turbines and the likelihood that number could substantially exceed one million deaths when the industry reaches its full build out capacity by 2030 or before.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has raised serious concerns about a plan by Heritage Sustainable Energy, DTE Energy, Exelon Corporation, and NextEra Energy to construct additional commercial wind turbines in Huron County, Michigan, which could eventually result in up to 900 turbines in the area.

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) this week held the nation's third competitive lease sale for renewable energy in federal waters, which offered nearly 80,000 acres offshore Maryland for potential wind energy development.

American Bird Conservancy, one of the nation's leading bird conservation organizations, is calling for a detailed re-analysis of a proposed wind power facility in Maryland that it says could prove to be the single-most deadly project for Bald Eagles in the Americas.