Grant: Special Research Opportunity Program - Project

The proposal is to gain infrastructure to allow us to initiate pre-construction research on birds and bat movement around proposed wind farm sites in BC.  Such research is extremely time-sensitive in BC, which is currently seeing the proposal of the province's first wind farms.  BC's unique topography and fauna make extrapolation of the effects of other wind farms on aerial wildlife difficult, and this could impede to developing this clean energy source.  The Centre is a joint venture between UNBC, the Canadian Wildlife Service and Industry that will focus on understanding how birds and bats utilize the airspace around proposed wind farm sites.  This infromation will be used to reduce the potential for direct (collisions) and indirect (habitat lost, excessive aversion behavior) impacts of wind farms.      Our goal is to conduct detailed analysis of the movement behaviour of affective wildlife, considering factors such as migrational timing, distance and height of migrants in relation to landscape features and weather patterns.  We have assembled a multidisciplinary team of researchers and will tap into existing infrastructure at UNBC valued at over two million dollars (high-performance computing and GIS labs, population genetics and behavioural research labs).  Through detailed understanding of the natural pre-construction movement of wildlife, we can predict the potential for impacts and work with wind energy producers to minimize these.    Basic operational funding has been provided by CWS and in-kind industry support.  We require funding for field equipment to facilitate this research, especially upgrades to our existing marine radars.  These radars are used to track exact position of night-migrating birds and bats.  Upgrades consists of securing computer interface cards that will allow us to record radar images for later, detailed analysis.  Using clutter removal software, we can remove features that obscure our ability to track wildlife movement.  This will provide the Centre with the ability to track wildlife in lower-visibility conditions than currently used by most researchers/consultants, despite these conditions coinciding with the highest collision rates at other wind farms.