Lowland birds not particularly bothered by wind farms

New research by Newcastle University

A research team led by Dr Mark Whittingham from Newcastle University conducted bird surveys on arable farmland around two wind farms in the East Anglian fens and published the results on the October issue of the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.

They monitored birds from 23 different species, including five red-listed species of high conservation concern, and discovered that the distribution of the largest part of them was not affected by the presence of wind turbines in the countryside.
This means good news for both conservationists and wind energy companies and policy makers.
The results are important especially because more wind turbines will need to be built on farmland, given the 20% target set by the European Commission for energy generation from renewable sources and the fact that agriculture is the major land use in the EU.
Moreover, the EU is spending billions of Euros also on agri-environment schemes including as major goal biodiversity boosting on farmland. If wind turbines harmed farmland birds, the two environmental policies would have been difficult to reconcile.
As the study was conducted during the winter, further studies are needed on the impact of wind turbines on farmland birds during the breeding season. Anyway, these preliminary results seem encouraging.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/research/news/press-release.htm?ref=1222852176