Ecological and Spatial Drivers of Bird Collisions with Wind Turbines in Southern Mexico

Wind energy offers cleaner benefits over fossil fuels. However, wind farms also pose complex ecological consequences, including risk to birds. We leveraged a dataset of bird fatalities collected over 15 years of carcass searches at eight wind farms in southern Mexico, to evaluate three aspects of bird collisions with wind turbines. First, we examined the taxonomic and spatiotemporal patterns of bird collisions; then we evaluated how fatalities relate to residency status and other species classifications; finally, we explored the relationship of fatalities with environmental and spatial factors. We recorded 1527 bird carcasses of 123 species. Pigeons and doves accounted for nearly 40% of all fatalities, with the White-winged dove concentrating 17% of the carcasses registered. Resident species accounted for 78% of the fatalities, with >50% occurring on only six species. Resident species and temporary residents had higher fatality rates than migratory species. Trophic guild analyses revealed that granivores, omnivores, insectivores, and scavengers had the highest collision rates. Environmental models showed that bird fatalities increased at turbines located further north with greater height, while those situated closer to the wind farm periphery also tended to exhibit higher collision counts. Our results suggest that wind farms disproportionately affect certain bird groups, especially residents, native, and ground-foraging species. Future research should address detection biases, integrate finer-resolution vegetation data, and evaluate cumulative impacts across additional wind farms to improve ecological risk assessments.