‘Green’ is Sometimes Mean

My work was holding a ‘Bat Night’ a while ago. There was a guest speaker who came in with a slide show presentation and some mist nets to catch bats.

Through this slideshow I learnt that Green Windmills are a major cause to thousands apon THOUSANDS of bat fatalities. Most people dont think much of bats because you tend to see them as some sort of flying mouse.

Bats are mammals, like humans. They are sensitive to air pressure changes. When we scuba dive, or fly in airplanes we need to stabilize the air pressure or the results may be fatal. That being said, these windmills are so massive that when thet turn they create their own votex were the air pressure is unstable.

So when the bats fly near the windmills,they appear to get ‘stuck’ on the outer end of the blade. Which is very odd behavior. Researchers found that the bats, due to the air votex of the mills are getting sucked in and are hemeraging internally Which kills the them.  This is  unfortunate, because the mills are a source of green energy so no ones is going to vote in favor of these poor bats and get rid of the mills.

Reserachers have also tried various techniques to keep them away, trying to jam their echoelocation and flashing lights the bats dont like. but nothing seems to do the trick. I found this scary because bat populations around the world have decreased almost 100%, In 20 years, bats may very well be extinct.

There may be some bat researching in my future…