Abstract
The interaction of bats and wind turbines is emerging as a major and unexpected problem in northern Appalachia. From mid-August through October 2003, during the fall migration period, at least 400 bats died at FPL Energy's 44-turbine Mountaineer Wind Energy Center on Backbone Mountain in West Virginia.
The bats apparently died by colliding with the wind turbines, but why so many animals were killed at this particular site remains a mystery. The public outcry over these numbers threatens to delay or halt construction of some of the additional several hundred wind turbines planned for the tristate region of West Virginia, western Maryland and south-central Pennsylvania.