I’ve blogged about it before. Here in Alberta, we are investing $3 Billion dollars into the wholesale slaughter of innocent bats. Sure, someone may catch a goofy-looking fish up in the oil sands, and attribute it to the most obtrusive-looking development in the region. But as our attention focuses on what we think is the obvious, the real slaughter begins by seemingly more benign methods.
We are slaughtering bats in this province, and we will pay the ecological cost. In no time, the bats will be gone, and the vermin will launch a counter-revolution, thereby cementing their hegemonic control over Alberta’s ecosystem. The land will be overrun with blood-sucking skeeters as mosquitoes launch an invasion of proportions not seen since the days of Orson Wells. The end result will be an Alberta that’s run by a Six-legged Vampire Dictatorship.
Above: Insectual Insurgents often depicted as friendly.
Already, Alberta’s mosquitoes are quietly launching a blood-borne jihad on the province, and we sit here, oblivious to the impending ecosystem apocalypse that is beginning to unfold.
What is killing the bats of Pincher Creek?
A mystery surrounding the large number of dead animals on a wind farm in Alberta prompted a groundbreaking study at the University of Calgary that found the drop in air pressure around some turbines resulted in fatal respiratory injuries . . .
After a two-year study, University of Calgary researchers have found that most of the bats suffered severe injuries to their respiratory systems consistent with a sudden drop in air pressure - called barotrauma - that occurs near the turbine blades.
The study will be released today in the online edition of the journal Current Biology.
Erin Baerwald, the research’s project leader and a University of Calgary graduate student, said that bats rarely run into manmade structures because the flying mammals can detect objects with echolocation, the location of objects by reflected sound.
“An atmospheric pressure drop at wind turbine blades is an undetectable - and potentially unforeseeable - hazard for bats, thus partially explaining the large number of bat fatalities at these specific structures,” she said.
Above: Dark Knight ponders vengance upon Alberta for the wrongs against his kin.
Related:
Science Daily: Why Wind Turbines Can Mean Death For Bats
U of Calgary Press Release (with video)
Bat Dieoffs in New York, PA, Fungus at work
Ecosystem Services provided by Bats
Sphere: Related Content
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Ivan prokopchuk 08.26.08 at 3:52 pm
You gotta build more belfries.
Is there a belfry gap?