Can we have both bats and wind energy?
Uruguayan scientists think so, and they’ve developed an acoustics algorithm that will aid conservationists to help Uruguayan bats survive.
Bats, which navigate and communicate using sonar, are critically important members of ecosystems across the world, but they often cannot detect the whirring blades of giant commercial wind turbines in time, with mass bat-fatalities resulting.
Now, scientists have made it possible for researchers working with wind companies to not only acoustically detect what species of bats are present but what activities — emerging from a roost, hunting, returning to a roost, etc. — they are engaging in.
The fine-grained data are publicly available and should go far toward helping one of the world’s leading green-energy sectors improve its environmental sustainability.
Source: Mongabay