Presentations

Abstract

So far, there have been no detailed data on bird mortality on wind farms in Poland, and when analyzing the possible scale of wind farm impact on avifauna for planned and operating wind farms, reference was made to data from other European countries and the USA. However, these data indicated a very high variability of collision intensity, ranging from 0 to 64 victims/turbine/year, making it difficult to conduct a real assessment of the impact of the investment on avifauna. This resulted in a large variety in the scope of required protective measures imposed by binding administrative provisions and often negative decisions for the wind farm projects being processed. The estimated and averaged global vulnerability of birds of prey (Accipitriformes) is 0.073 individuals/turbine/year [7]. At the same time, publicly available data (which are not the result of methodical mortality monitoring) (Durr 2021) show that raptor species are overrepresented as victims of collisions. Their percentage share sometimes approaches half of all recorded fatalities. In Spain, their share is 47%, in Germany 40.6%, and in France 21.4% (Górecki et al. 2022). At the same time, data from operating wind farms in Poland confirm that the installation of detection and response systems dedicated to protecting birds from collisions can be an effective solution that allows minimizing the risk of collisions in the case of farms built in places attractive to birds.