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It’s not just an awesome reggae track from Toots and the Maytals – “pressure drop” is also a fairly serious problem for bats around wind turbines, a new study suggests.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, Erin Baerwald and colleagues reported a large proportion of dead bats collected around wind turbines that showed signs of hemorrhage in the lungs. Such a finding is consistent with animals flying through an area of sudden barometric pressure drop – such as in the vortices created by spinning turbine blades – rather than with animals physically colliding with the turbines.

This again highlights the importance of bat study near turbines, to better understand just why bats are dying near turbines, and to find ways to reduce the mortality. It’s also of interest to me because in our study in Oklahoma, most of the necropsied bats did show broken bones that were consistent with collision mortality. Of course, our bats could have passed out before being struck by spinning blades, I can’t say for sure.

But, we need to keep talking about wildlife conservation in relation to wind power development. It’s not a panacea for our energy needs, and it’s highly disruptive to certain groups of animals, ironically, some for which we might be pursuing “green” energy on the mistaken assumption that it would benefit them.

Thanks to Richard Black, BBC News Environment Correspondent for the tip on this story.