Moth-inspired devices may offer protection for bats from wind turbine collisions – Yale Climate Connections

Transcript:

To help bats and wind turbines coexist, researchers have taken inspiration from a moth.

Bats have a keen sense of echolocation, but for some reason, they do not avoid turbines. Some species even face population declines due to wind turbine strikes.

To find ways to deter bats, researchers are learning from the bats’ prey. When a tiger moth encounters a bat, it emits high frequencies that are thought to jam the bats’ sonar.

Fritts: “So using that as the idea, people have built these bat deterrents that emit high-frequency noises, thinking that, maybe it’ll jam bats’ echolocation.”

Sarah Fritts of Texas State University is testing bat deterrents in a flight cage that’s about as big as an Olympic swimming pool.

She’s found that these devices can be very effective for some species.

Fritts: “So that’s awesome. However, physics of sound – sound at those high frequencies does not travel very far.”

And wind turbines are getting bigger and their blades longer. So a device on a turbine’s tower may not emit a strong enough signal to keep bats away from the tips of the blades.

So researchers are developing systems that can be installed right on the blades, so bats can be better protected as the wind industry grows.

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media