{"id":62716,"date":"2012-02-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-dem-biologists-track-sea-ducks-to-inform-offshore-wind-turbine-siting-decisions\/"},"modified":"2012-02-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T00:00:00","slug":"uri-dem-biologists-track-sea-ducks-to-inform-offshore-wind-turbine-siting-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/02\/uri-dem-biologists-track-sea-ducks-to-inform-offshore-wind-turbine-siting-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站, DEM biologists track sea ducks to inform offshore wind turbine siting decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"press-release-import\">\n\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"250\" height=\"157\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tBmVIjRoozo?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 21, 2012 \u2013 Biologists from the 溏心vlog免费B站, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and other agencies have implanted satellite transmitters in sea ducks to learn about the birds\u2019 daily movements and identify important wintering locations.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThe baseline data the scientists collect will be used when government officials and offshore wind farm developers make decisions about where to site wind turbines.  It will also be used to assess how the birds\u2019 movements are affected once the turbines are constructed.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to identify hot spots of bird use, the places you wouldn\u2019t want to put the wind farms,\u201d said Scott McWilliams, a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of natural resources science.  \u201cStudies in Western Europe have shown that one of the major effects of wind farms is to displace birds from the location of the wind farm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cWe want to minimize the potential impact of offshore wind turbines on our wintering ducks,\u201d said RIDEM biologist Jay Osenkowski.  \u201cThis telemetry project will help us track their movements around Rhode Island waters and identify the locations of their key foraging habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe biologists are focusing their efforts on common eider, a large sea duck that is abundant along the Rhode Island coast in winter and which nest along the coast of Maine and Canada.  Last year the scientists conducted a similar study of black scoters, another sea duck for which Rhode Island provides important wintering habitat.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tWell before dawn in November and December, McWilliams and Osenkowski, along with 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Peter Paton, 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student Josh Beuth, and research associates and biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, set up a series of long nets on floats in locations the birds are known to visit.  <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cWe set the nets up in the dark, put decoys around the nets, and hope that we picked the right spot based on previous scouting efforts,\u201d explained McWilliams.  \u201cThere\u2019s usually a lot of action early in the morning before the birds can see the nets well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tAny male eiders the scientists captured were released.  Adult females were brought to shore where veterinarian Glenn Olsen from the U.S. Geological Survey implanted the small satellite transmitter in their abdominal cavity.  After a short recovery period, the ducks were released back where they were captured.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cFemale ducks have all the power,\u201d said Paton. \u201cThey\u2019re the ones who pick the nest site, and the males follow them there.  That\u2019s why we are only tracking females. Their survival is what is important when monitoring populations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe biologists implanted satellite transmitters in 26 female eiders.  The birds\u2019 daily movements will be monitored throughout the winter, and data about migratory movements, stopover sites, and breeding territories will also be collected.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ll get information about key areas that eiders like in Rhode Island and wherever else they travel,\u201d McWilliams said.  \u201cYou can\u2019t get this information without this kind of study.  It\u2019s really important when it comes to managing populations of these birds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe data the scientists collect from the ducks will then be analyzed and factored into offshore wind turbine siting decisions.  The data will also be combined with similar information collected in other locations along the East Coast to gain a better understanding of sea duck ecology.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe research is conducted in partnership with the Sea Duck Joint Venture, a collaboration of wildlife conservation agencies in the U.S. and Canada that includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, the Pacific and Atlantic Flyway Councils, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and Ducks Unlimited.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 21, 2012 \u2013 Biologists from the 溏心vlog免费B站, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and other agencies have implanted satellite transmitters in sea ducks to learn about the birds\u2019 daily movements and identify important wintering locations. &#13; The baseline data the scientists collect will be used when government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}