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As we see more wind turbines popping up across the West Texas landscape researchers say there's a great deal of uncertainty over how it's affective native bird populations.
They suspect the animals are avoiding areas with turbines, which would shrink the amount of space they have to populate.
The research project's co-principal investigator, Matthew Butler, says that if this happens there's a strong possibility the number of birds could decrease as well. This is especially troubling for the prairie chicken, an already dwindling population.
"We're kind of concerned about this species because it's pretty rare," says Butler. "We don't want to do anything to hurt it, we don't know if there will be anything but to be on the safe side we can go ahead and put turbines over here, maybe around crop circles instead of grasslands."
For this project Texas Tech is using a $220,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to see what areas the birds occupy. This information can then help developers know where to place turbines to be the least disruptive to the ecosystem.
Butler says some worry about bird populations being affected when they run into the massive turbine blades in the air. But he says, overall, this isn't a huge problem. A change in migration patterns would have greater, longer-lasting effects.
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