Abstract
The post-construction wildlife monitoring program at the Maple Ridge Wind project is one of the most extensive investigations on the impact of wind development on wildlife at any site in the world. As part of this investigation, North East Ecological Services (NEES) was contracted to design and conduct a multi-year acoustic monitoring program to understand how bats use the landscape and what factors put them at greatest risk of collision with the turbines. Using a vertical sampling array and multiple sampling platforms across the project site, NEES explored the temporal (nightly and seasonal) and spatial (horizontal and vertical) distribution of bat activity across the project site. NEES analyzed the impact of meteorological variables on bat activity that may help inform predictive models used for adaptive management in order to reduce the impact of wind development on migratory bats.