It’s fairly common knowledge that meteorologists use Doppler radar to track the movement of various forms of precipitation.
But the NEXRAD Doppler records everything that is in the air space, and U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist Rick Sojda hopes to use the radar to track the migratory patterns of birds. He’s working with a Montana State University graduate student to develop an algorithm that could detect and track birds.
While the work is still in its early stages, it’s “showing great promise,” said Sojda, who is based at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman, Mont.
“The thing that’s driving most of it in the near term is the siting of wind turbines,” he said.
Officials don’t want to install wind turbines along migration paths because that could lead to numerous birds being killed and wind turbines being damaged.
“We have some idea of where those key areas would be, but at the same token we don’t have any quantitative data over the last 10 to 15 years,” he said.
When turbine locations are chosen, “we want to have some data behind it,” he said.