<
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/01/the-case-for-co-locating-offshore-wind-parks-and-nature-reserves/>
"In 2014, marine scientists at the University of St Andrews in Scotland
undertook a pioneering study to examine the behavior of gray and harbor seals
in the North Sea’s sprawling wind parks. From onshore laboratories, the
researchers followed seals marked with GPS tags in the vicinity of wind farms
off the Dutch and British coasts. Their findings astounded them: within the
parks, seals swam in grid-like patterns from turbine to turbine, stopping
regularly to feed around the masts.
One of the scientists, Dr. Deborah Russell of the Sea Mammal Research Unit of
St Andrews, says, “This was the first evidence that marine mammals
preferentially used an offshore manmade structure to forage.”
The Scottish team’s discovery that some sea life gravitates to wind-park waters
to feed turned on its head the orthodoxy about offshore wind parks’ singularly
deleterious impact on nature. For years, conservationists had accused sea-based
wind turbines of killing birds, confusing dolphins, and crushing seafloor
aquaculture. But the Scots’ research—since followed up on by scientists from
Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark—reveals that wind parks can
protect and even nurture a range of marine life, including the likes of the
European clawed lobster, brown crabs, and harbor porpoises as well as
threatened species such as North Sea cod and gray seals.
“This is very positive,” says Frank Adam, a wind-power expert at the University
of Rostock in Germany. “Wind parks are a protected place for fish, crustaceans,
and other species.”"
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
