Joanne Isaac
Bats get the Bends... (LINK)
August 29th 2008 01:29
Bats - not everyone's favourite animal...in Madagascar they like to eat them. But surely after reading a recent study published in the journal Current Biology, your heart has to go out to the little critters...
The large amount of bats which seem to die beneath wind turbines has previously baffled our finest biological minds...while it is easy enough to see why birdies crash into turbine blades - bats have echolocation and should be able to avoid the turbines.
Researchers in Calgary, Canada, found the answer - decompression sickness - or what is more generally knowns as 'the bends' the those cool types who go SCUBA diving. It seems that when bats fly near the turbines, there is a change in air pressure - from high to low, which causes them to get internal hemorraging and they fall to their doom.
This finding is obviously a major stumbling block for wind turbines to be seen as 'green energy'. The study doesn't really suggest any options which could be used to stop the bat deaths...if anyone has any ideas..?
The large amount of bats which seem to die beneath wind turbines has previously baffled our finest biological minds...while it is easy enough to see why birdies crash into turbine blades - bats have echolocation and should be able to avoid the turbines.
Researchers in Calgary, Canada, found the answer - decompression sickness - or what is more generally knowns as 'the bends' the those cool types who go SCUBA diving. It seems that when bats fly near the turbines, there is a change in air pressure - from high to low, which causes them to get internal hemorraging and they fall to their doom.
This finding is obviously a major stumbling block for wind turbines to be seen as 'green energy'. The study doesn't really suggest any options which could be used to stop the bat deaths...if anyone has any ideas..?
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