Barbastelle bats in a wind farm: are they at risk? ...

• Main Authors: Apoznański, Grzegorz, Sánchez-Navarro, Sonia, Kokurewicz, Tomasz, Pettersson, Stefan, Rydell, Jens
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2018
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Barbastella barbastellus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13470087; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13470087

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) We need to know if and how western barbastelles Barbastella barbastellus are affected by wind farming in Sweden. This is because wind turbines are frequently constructed in barbastelle habitats and yet there is no national guideline on how the arising conflict should be handled. We studied the movement, behavior and mortality of a barbastelle population at a wind farm in southern Sweden, using radio-telemetry, automatic bat detectors and carcass searches. The tagged bats (6 males and 8 females) roosted mainly under loose bark of dead oak trees and foraged in patches of mature deciduous woodlands or pockets of mature spruce trees within 15 km of the roosts. Extensive areas of young spruce plantation, open farmland and lakes were not used for roosting or foraging but were crossed by commuting bats. Continuous recordings with bat detectors frequently picked up barbastelles at forest edges 30 m from the turbines, but rarely over the turbine pads within 10 m from ...