The USGS is leading a multi-disciplinary team with members from government, academia, non-profits, and industry, in an effort to generate science to inform resolution of wildlife-related issues that can impede development and operations of wind and solar energy facilities.
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative (RWSI) develops science-based tools to understand population-level and cumulative impacts for wildlife affected by renewable energy facilities. Effective conservation strategies for renewables require information on when fatalities of individual wildlife become so numerous that they destabilize affected sub- populations. RWSI provides that critical information.
Relevance
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative provides critical science that regulatory and management agencies and industry need to manage growth of solar and wind energy generation. RWSI science informs project impacts and identifies effective mitigation for wildlife fatalities, allowing increased flexibility in planning development. Understanding impacts to wildlife populations from renewable energy is critical to streamlined and informed decision making, including compliance under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
RWSI Tools
Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative members gather, archive, and analyze samples from birds and bats killed at renewable facilities. Information from those samples identifies the geographic origin of those animals and is input into demographic models for those origin populations. Output from these combined analyses identifies where the affected population is from, how many fatalities it can support before it declines, and how much and where to target mitigation.
Future
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative is expanding to a national scale. The RWSI is supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other state and federal natural resource agencies. RWSI is soliciting tissue sample contributions from wind and solar energy facilities across the country.
RWSI Products
The publications below highlight the utility of the RWSI approach. These success stories illustrate how the approximately 80,000 samples currently archived have supported novel population-level vulnerability assessments, leading to tangible products that inform management decisions.
1. Counterfactuals to assess effects to species and systems from renewable energy development
Few studies have formally compared the environmental effects of renewable energy development to alternative scenarios with less development and more severe climate change. These alternative scenarios are referred to as counterfactual conditions. In this piece, RWSI partners highlight the importance of including counterfactual conditions describing scenarios with and without climate change to understand species- and population-level consequences of renewable energy development.
Katzner, T.E., Allison, T.D., Diffendorfer, J.E., Hale, A.M., Lantz, E.J., and Veers, P.S., 2022, Counterfactuals to assess effects to species and systems from renewable energy development: Frontiers in Conservation Science, v. 3, p. 844286. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2022.844286
2. Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production
Renewable energy production can kill individual birds, but little is known about how it affects avian populations. RWSI partners assessed the vulnerability of populations for 23 priority bird species killed at wind and solar facilities in California, USA. In total, 48% of these species were vulnerable to population-level effects from added fatalities caused by renewables and other sources. Effects of renewables extended far beyond the location of energy production to impact bird populations in distant regions across continental migration networks. Populations of species associated with grasslands where turbines were located were most vulnerable to wind. Populations of nocturnal migrant species were most vulnerable to solar, despite not typically being associated with deserts where the solar facilities we evaluated were located. These findings indicate that addressing declines of North American bird populations requires consideration of the effects of renewables and other anthropogenic threats on both nearby and distant populations of vulnerable species.
Conkling, T.J., Vander Zanden, H.B., Allison, T.D., Diffendorfer, J.E., Dietsch, T.V., Duerr, A.E., Fesnock, A., Hernandez, R.R., Loss, S.R., Nelson, D.M., Sanzenbacher, P., Yee, J.L., and Katzner, T.E., 2022, Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production: Royal Society Open Science, v. 9, p. 211558. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211558
3. Demographic and potential biological removal models identify raptor species sensitive to current and future wind energy
A central challenge in applied ecology is understanding the effect of anthropogenic fatalities on wildlife populations and predicting which populations may be particularly vulnerable and in greatest need of management attention. RWSI partners used three approaches to investigate the potential effects of fatalities from collisions with wind turbines on 14 raptor species for both current and anticipated future levels of installed wind energy capacity in the United States. These results suggest that, of the 14 species studied, those with relatively higher potential of population-level impacts from wind turbine collisions included barn owl, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, American kestrel, and red-tailed hawk. Burrowing owl, Cooper’s hawk, great horned owl, northern harrier, turkey vulture, and osprey had a relatively lower potential for population impacts. Projections of current levels of fatalities to future wind energy scenarios suggest some species could experience population declines because of turbine collisions.
Diffendorfer, J.E., Stanton, J.C., Beston, J., Thogmartin, W.E., Loss, S.R., Katzner, T.E., Johnson, D., Erickson, R.A., Merrill, M., and Corum, M.D., 2021, Demographic and potential biological removal models identify raptor species sensitive to current and future wind energy: Ecosphere, p. e03531. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3531
4. Limitations, lack of standardization, and recommended best practices in studies of renewable energy effects on birds and bats
Renewable energy facilities may adversely affect wildlife individuals and populations. Facility siting guidelines recommend or require project developers complete pre- and postconstruction wildlife surveys to predict risk and estimate effects of proposed projects. Despite this, there are no published studies that have quantified the types of surveys used or how survey types are standardized within and across facilities. Understanding fatality rates is critical to understanding population-level consequences of renewables. RWSI partners evaluated 628 peer-reviewed publications, unpublished reports, and citations, from the United States and Canada to better understand how pre- and post-construction surveys have been conducted over time. Results from this work suggest that available data generally preclude comparison of biological data across construction periods and among facilities. Use of experimental study designs and following similar field protocols would improve the knowledge of how renewable energy affects wildlife individuals and populations.
Conkling, T.J., Loss, S.R., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., and Katzner, T.E., 2020, Limitations, lack of standardization, and recommended best practices in studies of renewable energy effects on birds and bats: Conservation Biology, v. 35, no. 1, p. 64-76. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13457
5. Assessing population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors for terrestrial wildlife
Predicting the ecological and conservation significances of human influences on wildlife populations is difficult. However, methodological developments can help make the transition from count-based field data on individuals to rate-based demographic estimates. RWSI partners synthesized tools from multiple fields of study to develop a framework to assess population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors on terrestrial wildlife. This work illustrates key strengths of the framework but also important areas for subsequent theoretical and technical development to make it still more broadly applicable.
Katzner, T.E., Braham, M.A., Conkling, T.J., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., Loss, S.R., Nelson, D.M., Vander Zanden, H.B., and Yee, J.L., 2020, Assessing population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors for terrestrial wildlife: Ecosphere, v. 11, no. 3, p. e03046. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3046
6. Letter to the editor -Wind power: an ecological challenge
In this letter to the editor of Science, over 20 authors comment on an article titled “Grand challenges in the science of wind energy.” The authors acknowledge the challenges identified in the article and point out additional work needed, including understanding the effects of wind energy production on ecological systems, and developing and deploying tools to mitigate negative environmental effects. A key part of this letter was focused on understanding population-level consequences of renewable energy development for wildlife.
Katzner, T.E., Nelson, D.M., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., Campbell, C.J., Douglas, L., Yee, J.L., Vander Zanden, H.B., Sur, M., Huso, M.M., Braham, M.A., Morrison, M., Poessel, S.A., Loss, S.R., Conkling, T.J., and Miller, T.A., 2019, Wind energy- An ecological challenge: p. 1206-1207. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz9989
7. Application of isoscapes to determine geographic origin of terrestrial wildlife for conservation and management
Using stable isotopes as markers can yield valuable information about distributions of wildlife on a broad scale, with reduced labor and expense compared to tracking and telemetry. In this paper, RWSI partners provide an overview for the wildlife conservation and management community on how stable isotope methods may be applied to conservation problems and a primer on the process for assigning geographic origins to terrestrial wildlife. Use of isotope data in settings such as this is essential for development of the models to assess population-level consequences of renewable energy development, as documented in other papers on this web page.
Vander Zanden, H.B., Nelson, D.M., Wunder, M.B., Conkling, T.J., and Katzner, T.E., 2018, Application of isoscapes to determine geographic origin of terrestrial wildlife for conservation and management: Biological Conservation, v. 228, p. 268-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.10.019
8. Effect of heat and singeing on stable hydrogen isotope ratios of bird feathers and implications for their use in determining geographic origins
Researchers did an experiment to determine if heat and singeing affects the stable hydrogen isotope ratios of bird feathers. This is relevant for birds that are burned and killed at concentrating solar-energy facilities. At this type of solar facility, heliostats focus solar energy to central towers, creating an intense solar flux and high temperatures. Limited singeing did not dramatically alter stable hydrogen isotope ratios, but the authors advise that severely charred feathers should be avoided. This paper is an important technical contribution that allows the isotopic analyses described above to proceed.
Vander Zanden, H.B., Reid, A., Katzner, T.E., and Nelson, D.M., 2018, Effect of heat and singeing on stable hydrogen isotope values of bird feathers and implications for their use in determining geographic origins: Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, v. 32, no. 21, p. 1859-1866. https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.8253
9. Golden eagle fatalities & the continental-scale consequences of local wind-energy generation
Renewable energy production is expanding rapidly despite mostly unknown environmental effects on wildlife and habitats. RWSI partners used genetic and stable isotope (δ2H) data collected from Golden Eagles killed at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) in California in demographic models to test hypotheses about the geographic extent and population-level consequences of fatalities caused by renewable energy facilities. Geospatial analyses of δ2H values obtained from feathers showed that 25% of these APWRA killed eagles were recent immigrants to the population, most from long distances away. Genetic analysis indicated this subset of immigrant eagles was genetically similar to birds identified as locals from the δ2H data. Demographic models implied that in the face of this mortality, the apparent stability of the local Golden Eagle population was maintained by continental-scale immigration. These analyses demonstrate that ecosystem management decisions concerning the effects of local-scale renewable energy can have dramatic consequences for populations across a continental scale.
Katzner, T.E., Nelson, D.M., Braham, M.E., Doyle, J.M., Fernandez, N.B., Duerr, A.E., Bloom, P.H., Fitzpatrick, M.C., Miller, T.A., Culver, R.C., Braswell, L., and DeWoody, J.A., 2017, Golden eagle fatalities and the continental-scale consequences of local wind-energy generation: Conservation Biology, v. 31, p. 406–415. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12836
- Overview
The USGS is leading a multi-disciplinary team with members from government, academia, non-profits, and industry, in an effort to generate science to inform resolution of wildlife-related issues that can impede development and operations of wind and solar energy facilities.
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative (RWSI) develops science-based tools to understand population-level and cumulative impacts for wildlife affected by renewable energy facilities. Effective conservation strategies for renewables require information on when fatalities of individual wildlife become so numerous that they destabilize affected sub- populations. RWSI provides that critical information.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.The RWSI receives remains from birds and bats found dead at renewable energy facilities across the country Relevance
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative provides critical science that regulatory and management agencies and industry need to manage growth of solar and wind energy generation. RWSI science informs project impacts and identifies effective mitigation for wildlife fatalities, allowing increased flexibility in planning development. Understanding impacts to wildlife populations from renewable energy is critical to streamlined and informed decision making, including compliance under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).RWSI Tools
Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative members gather, archive, and analyze samples from birds and bats killed at renewable facilities. Information from those samples identifies the geographic origin of those animals and is input into demographic models for those origin populations. Output from these combined analyses identifies where the affected population is from, how many fatalities it can support before it declines, and how much and where to target mitigation.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.Bird feather samples archived at the Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative repository node in Boise, Idaho Future
The Renewables-Wildlife Solutions Initiative is expanding to a national scale. The RWSI is supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other state and federal natural resource agencies. RWSI is soliciting tissue sample contributions from wind and solar energy facilities across the country.RWSI Products
The publications below highlight the utility of the RWSI approach. These success stories illustrate how the approximately 80,000 samples currently archived have supported novel population-level vulnerability assessments, leading to tangible products that inform management decisions.1. Counterfactuals to assess effects to species and systems from renewable energy development
Few studies have formally compared the environmental effects of renewable energy development to alternative scenarios with less development and more severe climate change. These alternative scenarios are referred to as counterfactual conditions. In this piece, RWSI partners highlight the importance of including counterfactual conditions describing scenarios with and without climate change to understand species- and population-level consequences of renewable energy development.Katzner, T.E., Allison, T.D., Diffendorfer, J.E., Hale, A.M., Lantz, E.J., and Veers, P.S., 2022, Counterfactuals to assess effects to species and systems from renewable energy development: Frontiers in Conservation Science, v. 3, p. 844286. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2022.844286
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.The Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) in northern California 2. Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production
Renewable energy production can kill individual birds, but little is known about how it affects avian populations. RWSI partners assessed the vulnerability of populations for 23 priority bird species killed at wind and solar facilities in California, USA. In total, 48% of these species were vulnerable to population-level effects from added fatalities caused by renewables and other sources. Effects of renewables extended far beyond the location of energy production to impact bird populations in distant regions across continental migration networks. Populations of species associated with grasslands where turbines were located were most vulnerable to wind. Populations of nocturnal migrant species were most vulnerable to solar, despite not typically being associated with deserts where the solar facilities we evaluated were located. These findings indicate that addressing declines of North American bird populations requires consideration of the effects of renewables and other anthropogenic threats on both nearby and distant populations of vulnerable species.Conkling, T.J., Vander Zanden, H.B., Allison, T.D., Diffendorfer, J.E., Dietsch, T.V., Duerr, A.E., Fesnock, A., Hernandez, R.R., Loss, S.R., Nelson, D.M., Sanzenbacher, P., Yee, J.L., and Katzner, T.E., 2022, Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production: Royal Society Open Science, v. 9, p. 211558. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211558
3. Demographic and potential biological removal models identify raptor species sensitive to current and future wind energy
A central challenge in applied ecology is understanding the effect of anthropogenic fatalities on wildlife populations and predicting which populations may be particularly vulnerable and in greatest need of management attention. RWSI partners used three approaches to investigate the potential effects of fatalities from collisions with wind turbines on 14 raptor species for both current and anticipated future levels of installed wind energy capacity in the United States. These results suggest that, of the 14 species studied, those with relatively higher potential of population-level impacts from wind turbine collisions included barn owl, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, American kestrel, and red-tailed hawk. Burrowing owl, Cooper’s hawk, great horned owl, northern harrier, turkey vulture, and osprey had a relatively lower potential for population impacts. Projections of current levels of fatalities to future wind energy scenarios suggest some species could experience population declines because of turbine collisions.Diffendorfer, J.E., Stanton, J.C., Beston, J., Thogmartin, W.E., Loss, S.R., Katzner, T.E., Johnson, D., Erickson, R.A., Merrill, M., and Corum, M.D., 2021, Demographic and potential biological removal models identify raptor species sensitive to current and future wind energy: Ecosphere, p. e03531. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3531
4. Limitations, lack of standardization, and recommended best practices in studies of renewable energy effects on birds and bats
Renewable energy facilities may adversely affect wildlife individuals and populations. Facility siting guidelines recommend or require project developers complete pre- and postconstruction wildlife surveys to predict risk and estimate effects of proposed projects. Despite this, there are no published studies that have quantified the types of surveys used or how survey types are standardized within and across facilities. Understanding fatality rates is critical to understanding population-level consequences of renewables. RWSI partners evaluated 628 peer-reviewed publications, unpublished reports, and citations, from the United States and Canada to better understand how pre- and post-construction surveys have been conducted over time. Results from this work suggest that available data generally preclude comparison of biological data across construction periods and among facilities. Use of experimental study designs and following similar field protocols would improve the knowledge of how renewable energy affects wildlife individuals and populations.Conkling, T.J., Loss, S.R., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., and Katzner, T.E., 2020, Limitations, lack of standardization, and recommended best practices in studies of renewable energy effects on birds and bats: Conservation Biology, v. 35, no. 1, p. 64-76. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13457
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.A map showing the predicted origins of migratory red-tailed hawks (RTHA) killed at Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area between 2005 and 2017 5. Assessing population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors for terrestrial wildlife
Predicting the ecological and conservation significances of human influences on wildlife populations is difficult. However, methodological developments can help make the transition from count-based field data on individuals to rate-based demographic estimates. RWSI partners synthesized tools from multiple fields of study to develop a framework to assess population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors on terrestrial wildlife. This work illustrates key strengths of the framework but also important areas for subsequent theoretical and technical development to make it still more broadly applicable.Katzner, T.E., Braham, M.A., Conkling, T.J., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., Loss, S.R., Nelson, D.M., Vander Zanden, H.B., and Yee, J.L., 2020, Assessing population-level consequences of anthropogenic stressors for terrestrial wildlife: Ecosphere, v. 11, no. 3, p. e03046. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3046
6. Letter to the editor -Wind power: an ecological challenge
In this letter to the editor of Science, over 20 authors comment on an article titled “Grand challenges in the science of wind energy.” The authors acknowledge the challenges identified in the article and point out additional work needed, including understanding the effects of wind energy production on ecological systems, and developing and deploying tools to mitigate negative environmental effects. A key part of this letter was focused on understanding population-level consequences of renewable energy development for wildlife.Katzner, T.E., Nelson, D.M., Diffendorfer, J.E., Duerr, A.E., Campbell, C.J., Douglas, L., Yee, J.L., Vander Zanden, H.B., Sur, M., Huso, M.M., Braham, M.A., Morrison, M., Poessel, S.A., Loss, S.R., Conkling, T.J., and Miller, T.A., 2019, Wind energy- An ecological challenge: p. 1206-1207. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz9989
7. Application of isoscapes to determine geographic origin of terrestrial wildlife for conservation and management
Using stable isotopes as markers can yield valuable information about distributions of wildlife on a broad scale, with reduced labor and expense compared to tracking and telemetry. In this paper, RWSI partners provide an overview for the wildlife conservation and management community on how stable isotope methods may be applied to conservation problems and a primer on the process for assigning geographic origins to terrestrial wildlife. Use of isotope data in settings such as this is essential for development of the models to assess population-level consequences of renewable energy development, as documented in other papers on this web page.Vander Zanden, H.B., Nelson, D.M., Wunder, M.B., Conkling, T.J., and Katzner, T.E., 2018, Application of isoscapes to determine geographic origin of terrestrial wildlife for conservation and management: Biological Conservation, v. 228, p. 268-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.10.019
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in southeastern California, a concentrating solar energy facility 8. Effect of heat and singeing on stable hydrogen isotope ratios of bird feathers and implications for their use in determining geographic origins
Researchers did an experiment to determine if heat and singeing affects the stable hydrogen isotope ratios of bird feathers. This is relevant for birds that are burned and killed at concentrating solar-energy facilities. At this type of solar facility, heliostats focus solar energy to central towers, creating an intense solar flux and high temperatures. Limited singeing did not dramatically alter stable hydrogen isotope ratios, but the authors advise that severely charred feathers should be avoided. This paper is an important technical contribution that allows the isotopic analyses described above to proceed.Vander Zanden, H.B., Reid, A., Katzner, T.E., and Nelson, D.M., 2018, Effect of heat and singeing on stable hydrogen isotope values of bird feathers and implications for their use in determining geographic origins: Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, v. 32, no. 21, p. 1859-1866. https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.8253
9. Golden eagle fatalities & the continental-scale consequences of local wind-energy generation
Renewable energy production is expanding rapidly despite mostly unknown environmental effects on wildlife and habitats. RWSI partners used genetic and stable isotope (δ2H) data collected from Golden Eagles killed at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) in California in demographic models to test hypotheses about the geographic extent and population-level consequences of fatalities caused by renewable energy facilities. Geospatial analyses of δ2H values obtained from feathers showed that 25% of these APWRA killed eagles were recent immigrants to the population, most from long distances away. Genetic analysis indicated this subset of immigrant eagles was genetically similar to birds identified as locals from the δ2H data. Demographic models implied that in the face of this mortality, the apparent stability of the local Golden Eagle population was maintained by continental-scale immigration. These analyses demonstrate that ecosystem management decisions concerning the effects of local-scale renewable energy can have dramatic consequences for populations across a continental scale.Katzner, T.E., Nelson, D.M., Braham, M.E., Doyle, J.M., Fernandez, N.B., Duerr, A.E., Bloom, P.H., Fitzpatrick, M.C., Miller, T.A., Culver, R.C., Braswell, L., and DeWoody, J.A., 2017, Golden eagle fatalities and the continental-scale consequences of local wind-energy generation: Conservation Biology, v. 31, p. 406–415. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12836
- News