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Paris (AFP) – Wind farms is a "predator" in some ecosystems, "harming birds at the top of the food chain and triggering a knock-on effect".
Wind is the fastest-growing renewable energy sector, supplying around the world.
Close to 17 million hectares – an area roughly the size of Tunisia – is currently used for generating energy worldwide, and researchers have had a major impact on the technology.
In new research, an international team of scientists studied the effects of wind turbine in Western Ghats, a UNESCO-listed range of mountains and forest spanning India's west coast region and a global "hotspot" of biodiversity.
They found that these turbines have been present in many areas of the world where wind turbines have been present, which has been cascaded down the food chain and radically altered the density and behavior of the birds' prey.
In particular, the team observed an explosion in the raptors' favorite meal, fan-throated lizards, in areas dominated by the turbines.
Furthermore, they are important in the behavior and appearance, living as they are in an essentially predator-free environment.
"What was remarkable to us were the subtle changes in behavior, morphology, and physiology of those lizards," Maria Thaker, assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science's Center for Ecological Sciences and lead study author, told AFP.
As the levels of raptors fell around the turbines, so too did the rate of predisposing attacks the lizards had to deal with.
As a result, the team found that lizards living in and around wind farms had their vigilance against possible danger.
Simulating "predator attacks", humans in the study could be closer to a lizard in the wind farms than one living away from the turbines before the creatures fled.
– 'Be smart with green energy' –
After testing, the lungs have been found to have lower levels of a stress hormone, which have been found in Western Ghats.
Wind farms are known to be harmful to birds, disrupting their migration patterns and driving above average death rates.
Thaker said his research, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, has shown that wind farms replicated the role of the predator in the food chain by keeping the raptors at bay.
"They trigger top predators," she said.
"They are the 'predators' of raptors – not in the sense of killing them, but by reducing the presence of raptors in those areas."
As man-made carbon emissions continue to rise, Thaker said energy was vital in mitigating the effects of climate change.
But with the effect that the impact of the earth is more important than that of the environment.
"It took decades for scientists to realize that wind-turbines were negatively affecting animals that fly," Thaker said.
"We need to be smart about how to deploy green energy solutions." Let's reduce our footprint on the planet and put turbines in places that are already being broken down in some way – on buildings for example. "
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