Applying Research to Conservation: Science-Based Strategies Can Save Bats at Wind Farms

Our own bats-and-wind research was initiated and championed by Canada's largest wind-energy producer, TransAlta. In 2005, as wind energy was beginning to boom in Canada, we wondered if we would see bat fatalities at new wind facilities. We got the answer that fall, when hundreds of dead hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus) and silver-haired bats (Lasionycteris noctivagans) were found at the new Summerview I Wind Farm in southern Alberta.