Are Wind Turbines a Danger to Wildlife? Ask the Dogs.

Atlantic ^ | 7-21-21 | Sarah Zhang

[SJackson]

Humans are terrible at finding bats and birds killed by wind turbines. Dogs are great at it.

Kayla Fratt began preparing for her summer job in March, when a package of frozen bat carcasses arrived for her in the mail. Well, actually, the bats were for her border collies, Barley and Niffler, and it is really their summer job too. They needed to learn the scent of a dead bat, because they would be spending three months on wind farms, looking for bats killed by spinning turbines.

To teach them, Fratt, who worked as a dog trainer before getting into the bat-detection business, began by hiding the carcasses around her living room (in Tupperware, lest their smell linger on the furniture). The dogs soon graduated to hunting for dead bats in the yard, then in parks. Fratt took to carrying bat carcasses around when she left the house with Barley or Niffler, just in case they found themselves with free time to practice in a new location. All three of them reported for duty at a midwestern wind farm earlier this month. When we spoke last week, Fratt told me their orientation was starting the next day. Then, she said, “we hit the ground running.”

Barley and Niffler are just two of the many conservation-detection dogs now employed by the growing wind industry. As turbines proliferate across the country, understanding their effect on wildlife is more important than ever. In the early days of turbines, scientists had focused on the danger they posed to eagles and other raptors—but it turns out those big bird carcasses were simply the easiest for humans to spot.

“Truth was, people are terrible at finding bats and small birds,” says K. Shawn Smallwood, a biologist who has worked wind farms in California.

[SJackson]

Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me to be on or off . And ping me is you see articles of interest.

[allendale]

Feral cat colonies under wind turbines are feasting, fat and multiplying. Food just falls from the sky.

[Red Badger]

when a package of frozen bat carcasses arrived for her in the mail.

From Wuhan?.......................

[Da Coyote]

Wildlife deaths due to liberal religion are not countable.

Source: Rule 123, Leftist Book of Lies

[Red Badger]

Just where does one order a package of “frozen bat carcasses” ?................................

[cnsmom]

I hear they aren’t popular with fish or worms either.

[Red Badger]

Why would you need to train dogs to find dead bats?

Why not just look on the ground under the windmill?...................

[Yo-Yo]

Gee, rather than writing this article about the preparation and deployment of these bat-sniffing dogs, how about instead writing about their preliminary findings? They've been in the field for at least a couple of weeks prior to this article being published, so there must have been some results by now.

My hunch is that they've found lots of dead bats, but reporting so would cause consternation among the tree-huggers that embrace Green Wind Power, but also embrace wildlife.

[Fido969]

Dead birds don’t seem to last long.

There are billions of birds, and someone asked me once: “Where are all the dead birds? We should see thousands of them.”

[BuchananBrigadeTrumpFan]

I wonder how many birds are killed by car windshields, and sliding glass doors. I don’t like windmills, but I really don’t think 1 million birds killed by windmills is a big deal either.

[Outlaw76]

The only green in wind energy is money spent to prop it up.

[butlerweave]

The massive house sized concrete and steel footing for each turbine has to be killing something also

[Beagle8U]

“I wonder how many birds are killed by car windshields”

Very few due to the air flow design over modern cars.

[Menehune56]

Wind farms now take priority over the California Condor.

https://abcbirds.org/article/feds-decision-to-allow-wind-farm-to-kill-california-condor-threatens-recovery-effort-says-leading-bird-group/

[Organic Panic]

My dogs manage to find every rotten smelly dead thing without any training. Can I get a government grant to find dead birds?

[Bell Bouy II]

Sis raises Border Collies and thats not one, looks more like a G Shepard

[AnthonySoprano]

‘
They chop up birds 24 hours a day, and they need mechanical attention much more than advertised.

They chop up protected species 24 hrs a day.

‘

[BikerJoe]

There are billions of birds, and someone asked me once: “Where are all the dead birds? We should see thousands of them.”

Well, if you live rural like we do, you find out quickly that Mother Nature takes care of her own. A dead bird on our driveway that I see when I take the dogs out first thing in the morning will be gone in an hour (and not from the dogs). Same with roadkill.

Mother Nature can also be plentiful. We have a lake across the road and occasionally a hawk or blue heron will drop a fish in our yard :-)

[puppypusher]

“I wonder how many birds are killed by car windshields, and sliding glass doors. I don’t like windmills, but I really don’t think 1 million birds killed by windmills is a big deal either.”

Imagine walking around a Glass covered sky scraper and seeing the number of dead birds, mostly small song birds that have collided with the building. I worked at a Hospital that had a 15 story tower covered with glass and the birds lying dead on the side walks were very disturbing.

The owners of these buildings should be required to do something to prevent these excessive bird strikes.

Especially during times when birds may be migrating and the buildings are in their immediate migration route.