The effect of wind turbines on wildlife can cause anxiety to those with green credentials. However the greater prairie chicken, a wild inhabitant of the United States,  is largely unaffected by the wind turbines they share areas of the Great Plains of Kansas with. There’s no ruffling of coats or spitting of feathers necessary, because this is the official finding, reported a few weeks ago,  of a Kansas State University ecologist and his team, after  seven years of study.

Prairie Chickens Safer Near Wind Farms

The researchers were led by Brett Sandercock, a professor of biology. After their exhaustive study they concluded that wind turbines have little effect on greater prairie chickens. Indeed the scientists also found that female of the species survival rates increased after wind turbines were installed!

With the increasing number of wind farms being created  across the Plains of Kansas, Sandercock and his team were part of an unlikely alliance of stakeholders, including conservationists, wildlife agencies and wind energy companies, who studied how these wind projects influence grassland birds, whose numbers have declines over the last 100 years.

Sandercock said-

“The research will certainly aid with wind power site guidelines and with the development of mitigation strategies to enhance habitat conditions for the greater prairie chicken.”

Brett Sandercock

The greater prairie chicken was once abundant across the central Plains, but populations have declined because of habitat loss and human development.  The researchers studied the birds for seven breeding seasons and captured nearly 1,000 total male and female birds around the communal areas where males gather and make calls to attract females. Females mate with the males and then hide nests in tall prairie grass.

Sandercock, commenting on the findings, said

“We don’t have evidence for really strong effects of wind power on prairie chickens or their reproduction. We have some evidence for females avoiding the turbines, but the avoidance within the home range doesn’t seem to have an impact on nest site selection or nest survival.”

Similar studies have shown that oil and gas development adversely affect prairie chickens,  but not wind farms it seems. Female mortality rates are highest during the breeding season because females are more focused on protecting clutches than avoiding predators, but it seems that the turbines’ revolutions and slight noise may be sufficient to keep away predators and thus incease the chances of survival and improve breeding rates.

So it seems that the greater prairie chicken can be thankful for wind farm development in its habitat, although its predators such as the Coyote may be less pleased!

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