SOL leader Rob Suryan was a co-author on two recent papers. The first Deguchi et al. 2014, was published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, and examines physiological and behavioral consequences of prolonged restraint for transmitter attachment in short-tailed albatross chicks. The authors found that restraint elevated the levels of several enzymes that indicated muscle damage, and that in chicks with higher levels of these enzymes, fledging date was earlier and the period to sustained flight after fledging was longer. While survival to sustained flight did not appear to be affected, the long term survival consequences remain unknown. They conclude that reducing handling time for albatross chicks in wildlife studies is important to reduce muscle damage and behavioral consequences.
The second paper, Flowers et al. 2014, was published in the Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Marine Energy Technology Symposium. The co-authors presented the development and initial testing of a multi-sensor integrated instrumentation package that is capable of detecting bat and bird interactions with offshore wind turbines. They present the conceptual design of the package, initial testing of vibration sensors and proof of concept for sensor integration and event detection. This integrated system will allow for remote monitoring of environmental impacts of wind turbines, and has applications to other marine renewable energy developments beyond wind turbines.
Deguchi, T., R.M. Suryan, and K. Ozaki. 2014. Muscle damage and behavioral consequences from prolonged handling of albatross chicks for transmitter attachment. Journal of Wildlife Management 78:1302-1309.
Flowers, J., R. Albertani, T. Harrison, B. Polagye, R. Suryan. 2014. Design and initial component tests of an integrated avian and bat collision detection system for offshore wind turbines. Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Marine Energy Technology Symposium, Seattle, WA, April 15-18, 2014.