Bats in Peril

Some bad news for bats. Seems global climate change may be mucking with their breeding schedules and leading to a lack of food.

The other hot topic is bats colliding with wind turbines. As we try to move towards more reliable energy sources things like bats and birds are going to need to come into account when designing and placing wind farms. Bats are an important predator of insects such as disease carrying mosquitoes and important pollinators.

However, the bat officer expected one of the issues to be discussed at next week's symposium in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, in Romania would be wind turbines.

On the agenda is a presentation on wind farms in mountain areas of Portugal.

Ms Youngman said: "Wind farms were a hot topic at the last symposium.

"In Germany, there are turbines above forests and the mortality rate of bats has been found to be high.

"In Scotland, it was thought to be less of a problem because turbines tend to be in wide open spaces where bats are less likely to be."

ht Xian

Photo by Flickr user shewhopaints used under a Creative Commons license