hen harrier

trebor28

excuse my ignorance, i didnt read through the whole thread cause there was a lot of "crap" in it, even though mods deleted loads of posts, but how does a wind turbine directly affect hen harriers?
do they actually get killed by the rotors?

IceMaiden

In short not so many are killed by the rotor blades, the issue has been investigated in various countries with various results, in basic terms the area covered by each turbine & then x by the total acreage becomes an area of danger at the least or as importantly it reduces the feeding & breeding habitat .
In Irelands case areas where many wind farms are being proposed also tend to have in place existing conifer plantations these again are not an easy subject, results internationally are not all the same & on going work into possible solutions carries on. I believe much of the wind farm surveys have been conducted via interested companies in the wind energy sphere, some information states that true results will only emerge via very long term independent funded surveys.

Plantations in Ireland are a resource they use until the maturing trees close the canopy at that point the birds keep away & lose feeding/breeding grounds, so new immature plantations are favourable, unfortunately it has been noted second plantings are not as usable by the birds & so in a overall district the Acers of various aged plantation that are ever maturing already cause some concern, add to this the wind farms that take out further acreage permanently plus the odds of once one wind farm is erected others tend to apply for similar projects .

Indications show that they will use a second rotation of forest plantation but its not known if it provides them as well as first plantations. Basically its told they use the plantations for about a third of the time after its been planted .Another problem is the conversion of moorland/bog into cattle grazing or the areas of rough pasture as once more it becomes far less favourable to the Harrier.
Unfortunately in many areas of Ireland wind farms, large acres of plantations & rough grazing can all be found together ,this obviously reduces the habitat of the birds.