Mona Doss from Wildlife Acoustics discusses how wind operators can address bat conservation and regulatory risks with their SMART System. Their technology uses acoustically triggered curtailment to protect bats while maximizing wind energy production.

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Allen Hall: let's get started with the challenge facing Wind operators today. the Tricolored bat is in serious trouble and it's creating regulatory risks for the wind industry. Can you walk us through what's happening and why this matters for wind operators? 

Mona Doss: It matters because last fall, the US Fish and Wildlife introduced some, voluntary wooded guidelines for the tri-colored bat.

this, particular bat species population has, declined and is, primarily being affected by two factors. one being, something called, white nose that's affecting many back. Species across, north America. But the other is for some reason the tricolor bats. And [00:01:00] we're still looking at a lot of bat researchers, and I'll leave that to the bat biologist to address more specifically.

but they are, being affected very much by, wood turbine mortality. So it's gonna be a balance between trying to address back conservation as well as the needs for energy production, which we all want from a, wind farm. 

Allen Hall: And the white nose fungus is a really deadly disease for the tricolor bats.

I, I've seen numbers upwards of 90%, mortality rate, when that fungus, affects them. And that fungus is pretty much exists where they live. it's something hard to, stop. 

Mona Doss: Yeah, there's been a lot of great research by, various universities and VE Conservation International here in North America, trying to understand the nature of the fungus.

And, how there might be possibilities to, treat, bats that are exposed to that fungus. All of that at this point is still very experimental. but that fungus has wa out many, [00:02:00] bat ber macular of various species. You might have had bat ber macular that had tens of thousands of bats that are literally just down to a few dozen.

Joel Saxum: That's extreme. That's, that's like wiping out entire populations, entire ecosystems. 

Mona Doss: It's very extreme. so there's been a lot of monitoring for the progress of this fungus. It was first founded in New York a few years ago. It's been slowly migrating, towards the west. so you've got the fungus affecting the bats and you've got, the demand for more clean energy, with wind farms that are also contributing to bat mortality.

And these poor bat species are suffering from both sides at the moment. 

Allen Hall: It's very serious. Mona, what are the consequences for wind operators who don't proactively address this sort of dual threat to the. White nose syndrome, wind turbines, and fungus. obviously they're gonna be asking wind turbine operators to do something.

What does that look like? 

Mona Doss: Yeah. right now, [00:03:00] when the, wind farm operators are going in front of environmental regulators to, get their permitting all approved, there's a negotiation that's occurring between balancing the bat species protect protection based on maybe pre-construction, present servings for bats.

And the need for energy production. But as more and more bat species get listed as their populations are declining and they become species of concern, you're gonna have an increase in, what's called blanket curtailment.