A significant ecological obstacle linked to wind energy production is deaths of birds and bats in the event of a collision with rapidly rotating wind turbine blades.
However, there are solutions in the works. One is a bird fatality mitigation pilot project that involves painting and patterning turbine blades to improve their visibility and reduce collisions. The South African Wind Energy Association and BirdLife South Africa have encouraged wind farms to test this strategy.Dr Rob Simmons, the CEO and co-founder of Birds & Bats Unlimited, said 10 turbines should be painted with a “signal red” colour and 10 turbines should be used as controls .
Wind farms in South Africa are required to monitor their impacts on birds and report this to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and BirdLife SA.Ralston-Paton said the issue was not so much the impact of individual wind farms on birds but the cumulative effect of multiple wind farms.
Fatalities from collisions with wind turbine blades in South Africa have been recorded in other threatened and priority species, including the Verreaux’s eagle , the Martial Eagle , the Cape vulture , and the secretary bird .