Predicting bird and bat fatality risk at wind farms and proposed wind farm sites using acoustic-ultrasonic recorders

The USGS and University of Minnesota collaborators used acoustical and ultrasonic recorders to monitor flight notes of birds and calls emitted by bats flying at low elevations. Recorders were deployed in conjunction with ongoing fatality searches at wind facilities and at sites with a variety of landscape features. Objectives are to determine whether the recorders can be used to compare low-elevation flight activity among sites, and to relate recorder results to numbers of dead birds and bats found at wind facilities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined the partnership to deploy the recorders at numerous locations along the shores of several Great Lakes to estimate low-elevation flight activity of birds and bats, especially during [...]