Characterization of bat movement patterns to inform the decision-making process about the potential risks of local wind energy developments on bat populations

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In the past decade there are probably no other group of mammals experiencing the same level of risk to their long term viability as the insectivorous bats. One of the main threats to these populations are electricity- generating wind turbine facilities. Turbines on many wind farms are killing large numbers of bats such that annually many thousands of bats are killed by these facilities. There are major concerns about the ability of the species to withstand the impacts of these mortalities. By species type, it seems that those that undergo long -distance annual migrations (e.g., hoary, red and silver-haired bats) are most vulnerable to wind farm developments as they make up the largest proportion of the mortalities. However, a significant number of bats that undertake short-distance migrations are also killed (e.g., the year- round resident bat species that hibernate such as little brown and northern long-eared bats). To this point there has been a large amount of research done in North America on the issue but most of this work has been conducted at proposed or actual sites (i.e., local scale) in response to the regulatory requirements of the environmental impact assessment process. There are a number of questionable assumptions that have to be made to justify this approach. A major information gap that is required by the industry, is a characterization of the regional movement patterns of year-round resident bats of temperate areas. Hence, the goal of this project is to assist industry by filling this information gap. We will track individual bats and genetically characterize population structure to give decision-makers a better understanding of the potential risks of locating wind farms in particular areas. We believe that the results of this project will inform industry about the frequency and distribution of bat movements over different distances and along different pathways and therefore permit more efficient planning of their green energy developments to meet government targets.