Range management practices to reduce wind turbine impacts on burrowing owls and other raptors in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, California
Author:
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.
Prepared for Public Interest Energy Research Program, California Energy Commission
October 2009
