Abstract
This study looks at the effects wind farms could have among breeding seabirds. In general, wind farms pose direct mortality to birds via collision, physical habitat modification, and provoke avoidance responses from birds. Bird reproduction success or failure depends upon the body condition of the bird during that process. Thus, a bird that must fly around a wind farm could exert more energy than normal which could cause fatigue leading to any number of negative consequences. This is potentially amplified to unknown magnitudes with the growing number of wind farms.
Generally, birds exhibit avoidance behaviors around wind farms. They tend to appear aware of them and avoid them if possible. However, this assessment must also take into consideration individual bird species as birds have different morphologies. In other words, a species-specific approach is best because not all birds are the same. However, as the number of wind farms increase, foraging distances will increase. This would affect all birds, but not necessarily in the same way.