Prairie Chickens Versus Wind Turbines

Wind turbines are known to chop up birds and bats and have deleterious effects on humans (see references below). Now researchers have found another way wind turbine arrays adversely affect wildlife. Researchers studied a population of Greater Prairie Chickens in Kansas and found that wind turbines inhibit breeding.

The Greater Prairie Chicken is “A grouse of open grassland, [that] is known for its mating dance. Males display together in a communal lek [mating area], where they raise ear-like feathers above their heads, inflate orange sacs on the sides of their throats, and stutter-step around while making a deep hooting moan.” This behavior attracts females. (Cornell Lab of Ornithology, see photos here: Male Female)

A team of researchers studied Greater Prairie Chicken habitat in Kansas where a wind turbine array was constructed. Their study “Responses of male Greater Prairie-Chickens to wind energy development” is published in The Condor (see full study here).

The study began two years before construction of a wind turbine array and lasted for three years after construction was completed. They found that the rate of lek (mating site) abandonment within 8 km of turbines was three times higher than in the general population on the prairie as a whole. Male birds also showed a slight weight loss. Apparently the birds don’t like tall structures. The paper notes that similar effects have been observed with other structures: “Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are negatively affected by proximity to oil and gas extraction wells, roads, towers, and transmission lines, resulting in abandonment of leks, avoidance of anthropogenic structures, loss of nesting habitat, reduced survival…”

The Cornell Lab notes that the Greater Prairie Chicken “is on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List, which lists species most in danger of extinction without significant conservation action. The Eastern subspecies, known as the Heath Hen, went extinct in 1932. The Texas form, the Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken, is critically endangered and at severe risk of extinction.”

It looks like “green” energy is not so green after all.

See also:

The effect of wind turbines on human health

British study shows wind power generates only 2 percent of rated capacity

Wind turbines versus wildlife

Wind turbines killed 600000 bats last year

Winds farms decrease weather radar ability to track storms

The scale problem for solar and wind generation of electricity