Range Management Practices to Reduce Wind Turbine Impacts on Burrowing Owls and Other Raptors in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, California

Publication Number:    CEC-500-2008-080

Abstract:

The East Bay Regional Park District studied the impacts of wind turbines on raptors at its properties in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA). Several studies were conducted to provide information useful to reducing impacts to raptors due to construction or repowering of wind farms. The studies’ objectives included determining whether vegetation height can be managed to affect the distribution of small mammals near wind turbines to reduce risk to raptors, determining the effectiveness of seasonal wind turbine shutdowns to reduce raptor collisions with wind turbines, relating burrowing owl population size to mortality, determining factors that affect raptor behavior and spatial distribution, estimating scavenger removal rates of bird carcasses, and assessing wind turbine repowering scenarios.

Keywords: Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, East Bay Regional Park District, wind turbines, vegetation management, grazing, raptor flight behavior, raptor mortality, small mammal burrow distribution, scavenging rates, mortality estimates, GPS, digital elevation model, wind farm repowering, Vasco Caves Regional Preserve, Souza parcel

Author(s):  K. Shawn Smallwood, Lee A. Neher, Douglas A. Bell, Joseph E. DiDonato, Brian R. Karas, Sara A. Snyder, and Salvador R. Lopez

Commission Division:    Technology Systems Division - R&D, PIER (500)

Office/Program:    Environmental

PIER Program Area:    Avian-Energy Mitigation Program

Date Published:    October 2009

Date On Line:    10/07/2009

Acrobat PDF File Size: 204 pages, 13,300 kilobytes**