AUS Press: Introduction of wind farms helps finds endangered
Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:27 pm
I stole this from Herp News, who posts interesting reptile news tidbits on the Reptile Canada forum.
Herp News wrote:AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION 28 December 12 Introduction of wind farms helps finds endangered lizards (Brooke Neindorf)
The South Australian Museum says the introduction of wind farms has led to greater discoveries of the pygmy bluetongue lizard in the State's mid-north.
For 20-years the Museum has led a research project into the endangered species in the Burra region.
A community group has been formed to help continue the research which has now identified about 27 populations of the rare lizard.
Senior herpetology researcher at the Museum, Doctor Mark Hutchinson, says greater environmental scrutiny for wind farm developments has had an unexpected side-effect.
"In the periphery of it where people are looking to put in tracks or other things, down the bottoms of hills and on the edges of where the windfarms are going, the lizards have turned up.
"So about four or five of the latest populations have turned up as a side-benefit of having to pay for environmental attention to particular areas in the landscape."
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/sa/content/2012/12/s3661460.htm