Are wind turbines a danger to birds?

[Heather]

As an animal lover I am a little concerned that wind turbines may be dangerous to not only native wildlife but also the more at risk species. this applies to bats too

How are they made safe to birds and bats so they don't fly into them?  Bats are probably ok because of their sonar but what about birds?  I know the turbines make hardly any noise at all, so how can you ensure the birds don't fly into them?

[Mark Haslam]

With anything that they place in the environment, there are plenty of checks done in order to make sure that things are safe to all wildlife in the surrounding area. People need to be very careful about how they balance the risk to the environment with the potential gains from the system that they are putting in place, but once they've weighed up the pros and cons, they're usually in a much better position to try and work something out.

[Luke Bainbridge]

The thing is, birds could fly into anything. I can't even count the number of times that birds have flown into the window of our home, and you'd never get people saying that you can't build homes because they're not safe for birds. But I am certain that research will have taken place. Animal charities wouldn't let things like this happen if there was any major chance that harm could be caused.