Mount studying wind turbine location to ensure safety of migrating bats, wildlife

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — In preparation for the building of a new wind turbine on Mount Wachusett Community College’s campus, officials are taking necessary precautions to protect bats and other local wildlife that have been reportedly killed by similar projects across the country. Those precautions began when the college consulted Dr. Jaques Veilleux, a local bat expert, to begin researching the surrounding bat population by using a crane to apply acoustic monitoring equipment to a tower adjacent to the campus. Robert Rizzo, director of facilities administration at MWCC, said the college is being very careful about where the new turbine will be constructed, because they want to have as little effect on the animal life around campus as possible. “This research is being done for the college’s wind project,” said Mr. Rizzo. “In addition to researching the bats, we have already funded a similar project that made sure this wouldn’t have an impact on the birds in the area.” Dr. Veilleux, who is a professor at Franklin Pierce University, said that experts are still baffled as to why these newly constructed wind turbines are hitting migrating bats. “The problem is that it seems that bats ... are flying through the airspace surrounding where the turbines are operating and are being consistently killed during their migrations, particularly during their fall migrations,” said Dr. Veilleux. “We really don’t know anything at all about why this is happening, and why bats aren’t avoiding them. So it will be through this study that we are trying to get an idea of their relative activity and coming up with a predictive model as to whether or not these towers pose a threat to the local bat population.” According to Dr. Veilleux, the equipment that is being mounted to the tower is expected to help officials gather a wide range of information about local bats. “This is special equipment that can monitor high-frequency bat calls that are transmitted as they travel around the area, and those signals are recorded and saved as files that we can then pull up on a computer,” said Dr. Veilleux. “Each species of bat uses a unique type of sonar, so we can then use this information to find out which kind of bats are flying through the airspace, at what time of night they are most active, and also at what point seasonally the bat population’s air activity peaks.” Dr. Veilleux added that the equipment is capable of picking up a transmitted bat signal from a range of 50 to 70 feet away. oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 3 on 6/6/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 134)