PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 19: Bat habitat use in eastern North American temperate forests: Site, stand, and landscape effects
Organizer(s): RT Brooks and M Ford
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 510a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
The use of passive acoustic monitoring as a biological assessment tool for surveying migratory patterns of bats in relation to wind power development.
Reynolds, Scott*,1, 2, 1 North East Ecological Services, Concord, NH, USA2 St. Paul's School, Concord, NH, 03301
ABSTRACT- Wind resource development has been growing more rapidly than any other energy sector, and the impact of this growth has finally reached the northeast. Concern over the potential impact of wind farms on bats, and in particular the potential risk of mortality for the endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), has resulted in pre-construction surveys at several proposed wind farms in Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts. In 2004, we used passive acoustic monitoring at multiple high elevation ridge top sites during both the spring and fall migratory season. Data collected at these sites suggest that most of the activity during the migratory period occurs at low heights (less than 5m above ground), although some bat activity was heard at turbine height (50m). The data suggest that hibernating migratory bats (Myotis spp.) and non-hibernating migratory tree bats (Lasiurus spp. ) differ in both the temporal and vertical spatial dimension. The ridge top sites surveyed in 2004 appear to have low levels of migratory activity at turbine height.
Key words: wind power, Myotis sodalis, Anabat, migration