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  3. Bat, insect, and bird activity at a wind turbine in Colorado experimentally illuminated with ultraviolet light at night in 2019 to try and deter bats

Bat, insect, and bird activity at a wind turbine in Colorado experimentally illuminated with ultraviolet light at night in 2019 to try and deter bats

Dates

Publication Date
Start Date
2019-03-01
End Date
2019-09-18

Citation

Cryan, P.M., Gorresen, P.M., Straw, B.R., Thao, S., and DeGeorge, E., 2021, Bat, insect, and bird activity at a wind turbine in Colorado experimentally illuminated with ultraviolet light at night in 2019 to try and deter bats: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9M0S3BV.

Summary

Certain species of tree-dwelling bats die after colliding with the moving blades of industrial wind turbines. Based on the speculation that these bats approach turbines after visually mistaking them for trees, we tested a potential light-based deterrence method. It is likely that the affected bats see ultraviolet (UV) light at low intensities. Here, we present the results of a multi-month experiment to cast dim, flickering UV light across wind turbine surfaces at night and concurrently monitored bat, bird, and insect activity using a thermal-imaging surveillance camera. This data release consists of a file of tabular digital data that includes nightly counts of bat, bird, and insect detections derived from thermal video and used in [...]

Contacts

Point of Contact :
Paul Cryan
Process Contact :
Paul Cryan
Originator :
Paul Cryan, Paulo Gorresen, Bethany R Straw, Syhoune 'Simon' Thao, Elise DeGeorge
Metadata Contact :
GS-RMA-FORT Data Management
Distributor :
U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
SDC Data Owner :
Fort Collins Science Center
USGS Mission Area :
Ecosystems

Attached Files

Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.

Bat insect and bird activity at a wind turbine in Colorado.xml
Original FGDC Metadata
View 		17.7 KB application/fgdc+xml
Bat insect and bird activity at a wind turbine in Colorado.csv 5.57 KB text/csv

Purpose

Our objectives were to refine and test a practical system for dimly UV-illuminating turbines while testing whether the experimental UV treatment influenced the activity of bats, birds, and insects. We mounted upward-facing UV light arrays on turbines and used thermal-imaging surveillance cameras to quantify the presence and activity of night-flying animals. The results demonstrated that the turbines can be lit to the highest reaches of the blades with “invisible” UV light, and the animal responses to such experimental treatment can be concurrently quantified from surveillance video. The UV treatment did not significantly change nighttime bat, insect, or bird activity at the wind turbine. Our findings show how observing flying animals with thermal cameras at night can help test emerging technologies intended to variably affect their behaviors around wind turbines.

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Communities

  • Fort Collins Science Center (FORT)
  • USGS Data Release Products

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Additional Information

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Type Scheme Key
DOI https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier doi:10.5066/P9M0S3BV

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