PLoS One. 2016 Jun 23;11(6):e0157807. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157807. eCollection 2016.
- 1Center
for Conservation Biology, College of William and Mary & Virginia
Commonwealth University, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States of
America.
Abstract
Collisions
with anthropogenic structures are a significant and well documented
source of mortality for avian species worldwide. The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
is known to be vulnerable to collision with wind turbines and federal
wind energy guidelines include an eagle risk assessment for new
projects. To address the need for risk assessment, in this study, we 1)
identified areas of northeastern North America utilized by migrating
bald eagles,
and 2) compared these with high wind-potential areas to identify
potential risk of bald eagle collision with wind turbines. We captured
and marked 17 resident and migrant bald eagles
in the northern Chesapeake Bay between August 2007 and May 2009. We
produced utilization distribution (UD) surfaces for 132 individual
migration tracks using a dynamic Brownian bridge movement model and
combined these to create a population wide UD surface with a 1 km cell
size. We found eagle migration movements were concentrated within two
main corridors along the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Coast.
Of the 3,123 wind turbines ≥100 m in height in the study area, 38% were
located in UD 20, and 31% in UD 40. In the United States portion of the
study area, commercially viable wind power classes overlapped with only
2% of the UD category 20 (i.e., the areas of highest use by migrating eagles)
and 4% of UD category 40. This is encouraging because it suggests that
wind energy development can still occur in the study area at sites that
are most viable from a wind power perspective and are unlikely to cause
significant mortality of migrating eagles.
In siting new turbines, wind energy developers should avoid the
high-use migration corridors (UD categories 20 & 40) and focus new
wind energy projects on lower-risk areas (UD categories 60-100).
