“I discovered that there has been considerable underestimation of fatalities reported to the public by the Wolfe Island wind project,”

 The Wolfe Island bird and bat monitoring report covering the period between July and December of 2009 indicated that 602 birds and 1,270 bats were killed by the turbines over that stretch. While the report says the numbers of dead birds and bats are similar to other wind farms in North America, Ottawa-based environmental advocacy group Nature Canada said the figures were actually surprisingly large and represent a significant threat to several endangered species.

 The latest Wolfe Island Wind Project post construction Bird and Bat Mortality Monitoring report indicated an annual bird mortality rate of 0.77 birds/ MW for the Period  of January -June 2012 . This is lower than that observed at the nearby Maple Ridge facility

 A Bird's eye view of Wolfe Island

  Bill Evans, an ornithologist based in Ithaca, N.Y., who has studied the impact of turbines on birds and bats recently made an observation concerning the number of bird kills reported for the Wolfe Island wind project.    

 Evans, who was hired by the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists to study the potential impact of the project on bird mortality,  recently gave his testimony to a tribunal in that county .

“I discovered that there has been considerable underestimation of fatalities reported to the public by the Wolfe Island wind project,” 

Evans said.

“In my tribunal testimony, I noted a discrepancy between positions taken by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources(OMNR) and Environment Canada regarding the distance of carcasses (that) land from the base of a wind turbine.” 
OMNR states in their Dec 2011 publication Birds and Bird Habitats: Guidelines for Wind Power Projects that “most bird carcasses fall within 50 m” while Environment Canada states in their 2007 publication Recommended Protocols for Monitoring Impacts of Wind Turbines on Birds wind energy guidelines that “most carcasses fall within 80 m”.  While I testified that OMNR may be technically correct in that more than 50% fall within a 50 m radius of the Wolfe Island Wind Project (WIWP) wind turbines, I noted this is misleading in not specifying that a substantial portion fall beyond the 50 m survey zone. I presented evidence from the fatality study at the Maple Ridge Wind Project, 70 km to the southeast of WIWP in New York indicating that 40% of small birds fall in that study’s most distant survey zone 50-80 m radius from the wind turbine base. The numbers of bird carcasses that are lofted beyond 80 m are largely unknown but thought to be relatively small. I also noted that the NY wind turbines were an older, smaller variety – the WIWP wind turbines are taller with blade tips traveling over 200 km/hr, so one would anticipate small bird carcasses whacked even further.

I noted that the Ostrander wind turbines (142.5 m agl) would be even larger than those on Wolfe Island with a 1000+ m 2 greater  rotor-swept area, yet the fatality study protocol approved by both OMNR and EC still only involves surveys out to 50 m.

It is difficult for me to believe that the biologists at OMNR and EC who reviewed the post-construction bird & bat monitoring plant for the Ostrander project do not understand that these larger turbines will launch songbird carcasses much further than the smaller turbines at the Maple Ridge project, and that more than half of the small birds may land beyond the 50 m search radius. This appears tantamount to a cover-up, but I have no direct evidence.

   

 Link below for the latest WIWF Bird & Bat mortality monitoring report 

Wolfe Island Post Construction Bird and Bat Monitoring Report NO.7 January - June 2012

 Sources:

[The Globe & Mail]

  [The Whig]