Wind and Solar are championed by many as better for the environment, but almost any change in power generation has an environmental impact somewhere. Bird migration is many times mentioned when discussing wind turbines, but other animals are affected like bats. Most people don’t like bats, but they are an important part of the ecosystem. Times writes on the economic costs of losing bats.
The Economic Cost of Losing Bats
Posted by BRYAN WALSH Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 2:09 pm
6 Comments • Related Topics: wildlife , agriculture, bats, crops, disease, extinction, insects, pests, science, white-nose syndrome, wildlife
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service / Bloomberg / Getty
It can be hard to feel much sympathy for bats. Like snakes or spiders or sharks or bunnies (OK, maybe the last one is just me), there's something primordially alarming about bats, something that activates the lizard part of the brain and shutters empathy. Bats aren't actually "flying rodents," but you likely won't see them on the next endangered species poster.
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/03/31/the-economic-cost-of-losing-bats/#ixzz1IHp03F2Z
One point mentioned in the article is the effect on Wind Turbines on the bat population.
It's not just WNS that is striking down bats. Wind turbines are apparently killing migratory bats as well—by 2020, an estimated 33,000 to 111,000 bats are predicted to be killed by turbines in the mid-Atlantic Highlands alone. The authors in the Science paper worry that as wind power ramps up in the U.S., more bats will end up pureed by the blades.
