Normandeau's Hooton speaks at AWEA's WINDPOWER® Conference

awea offshore conference

Bedford, NH — Normandeau's Lauren Hooton, MS, a bat biologist, recently delivered a presentation titled "The Influence of Weather on Fall Bat Activity Varies among Geographic Regions and Species" at the AWEA WINDPOWER® Conference and Exhibition--one of the nation's premier wind industry conferences. Her presentation was part of the session "New Modeling and Wildlife Research Advancements to Manage Risk."

During a three-year, five-state, 12-site study on wind resource areas in the West and the Midwest, the Normandeau team wanted to determine--from monitoring weather-specific bat activity--how atmospheric variables influenced bat behavior and which factors had the greatest influence. Hooton says, "We examined the relationship between acoustic activity of four bat species and four atmospheric variables: temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and relative humidity." Results indicate that while weather plays a definite role in bat activity, that role varies among species and geographic regions--critical knowledge when managing risk to bat species at wind and other energy-generation facilities. You can link to the abstract for Hooton''s presentation here.

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