Greg’s post yesterday about wind turbines killing bats reminded me of a footnote in my Texas wind energy study [PDF].

In addition to being killed by turbine blades, new research says that air-pressure changes, caused by wind turbines, cause bats’ lungs to overinflate, resulting in death. As reported by Montreal’s Gazette, “Their lungs fill with fluid and they can no longer breathe,” says Erin Baerwald, of the University of Calgary, lead author of a report on bat deaths released by the journal Current Biology. According to the Gazette, “Biologists have also been at a loss to explain why the bats are dying. Baerwald, whose team has picked up as many as 188 dead bats a day at Summerview, says half the corpses show no outward sign of injury or contact with the blades. And some of the bats they find are still alive, but are unable to fly and have blood in their mouths and noses.”

Read more on this at NewScientist.