While the reasons are not fully clear, wind turbine collisions cause the fatalities of an estimated hundreds of thousands of bats in North America each year. In Connecticut, where populations of all nine bat species are already low enough to warrant all species being listed, at the minimum, as Species of Greatest Conservation Need, such fatalities greatly increase the survival pressures put on local bat populations. 

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The species which have been proven to suffer the most from fatal turbine collisions are migratory tree bats. Research has shown that collisions primarily happen during the migratory months and three-quarters of these collisions involve migratory tree bat species. Connecticut is home to three species of migratory tree bats (silver-haired bat, eastern red bat, and hoary bat) which are already present in very small numbers due to habitat loss. 

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Conservation efforts are necessary in Connecticut to ensure that wind energy continue to be developed without adversely impacting at risk or endangered bat species.