Offshore wind energy development is rapidly expanding, with significant welfare implications for seabirds through collision risk and habitat displacement.
Offshore wind development creates a genuine welfare dilemma: the energy transition it enables reduces climate change and its catastrophic wildlife welfare impacts, while the turbines themselves impose collision and displacement costs on seabirds. The welfare arithmetic is complex and scale-dependent. For species like gannets, whose population viability may be threatened by cumulative collision mortality across expanding North Sea wind farms, the harm could be significant and population-level. For other species, displacement from foraging areas may cause chronic energetic stress without direct mortality. The welfare solution requires careful siting that avoids key seabird concentration areas, cumulative impact assessment, and ongoing monitoring rather than treating wind energy as automatically beneficial for wildlife.