Windmills to shut at night following demise of rare bat

From the Tribune-Democrat.com (Oct. 17):

LILLY — Night operation of the windmills in the North Allegheny Windpower Project has been halted following discovery of a dead Indiana bat under one of the turbines, an official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday.

The finding marks only the second location where an Indiana bat has been found dead under a wind turbine. Two Indiana bats were found under turbines in the Mid-west, said Clint Riley, supervisor for Fish and Wildlife’s Pennsylvania field office.

The find is significant because the Indiana bat is an endangered species and is protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

The 35-windmill farm was built by Gamesa Energy USA in Portage, Washington and Cresson townships in Cambria County and extends across the line into Blair County. [read more]

I thought something like this was going to happen, but not with bats though. So, the gov’t officials have decided to turn off the windmills at night. That’s nice for the bats (well, the endangered ones anyway), but what about the citizens that rely on the windmill energy? It can get very cold at night especially during the winter time. It sucks to be them I guess.  And if an endangered bird gets killed during the day then what happens? No electricity at all?

You know no bats would have been killed if they had been using a coal-burning plant or even a nuclear plant. But that would have ticked off the environmental nuts.