AI wildlife monitoring company Spoor, in partnership with creative agency FP7 McCANN MENAT, has launched The Birdwatcher, a new initiative aimed at making bird activity around wind energy projects more transparent through accessible data and public engagement.
Announced on April 8, 2026, the initiative seeks to address long-standing concerns about the impact of wind turbines on birds and bats, particularly endangered species, by using artificial intelligence to improve monitoring and risk mitigation.
Wind energy developers have historically depended on manual observation methods, which often produced fragmented data and contributed to regulatory delays and large buffer zones around projects. The new initiative aims to demonstrate how better data can help balance renewable energy expansion with biodiversity protection.
According to estimates cited by the company from the American Bird Conservancy (2021), wind facilities in the United States alone may be responsible for between several hundred thousand and 1.2 million bird deaths annually, with global numbers believed to be significantly higher.
Spoor said its Sky Intelligence Platform uses AI-driven computer vision and ecological analysis to continuously detect, track and classify birds, enabling wind operators to take preventive measures such as turbine curtailment when necessary. The system reportedly achieves detection ranges of up to 1.5 km with accuracy levels of at least 95 percent.
The company said the technology can be used across multiple stages of wind farm development, including environmental impact assessments, permitting, operational monitoring and mitigation planning. The data can also help identify nesting areas, migration corridors and high-risk activity zones before construction begins.
In one case study at Aberdeen Bay, a Spoor monitoring system tracked bird activity for 19 months, covering about 95 percent of daylight hours. The system recorded 2,007 bird flight tracks and identified five potential collision risks, but confirmed no actual collisions.
The company said independent scientific trials have validated the system’s detection capabilities against human observation, and that the platform can also monitor bird activity from offshore infrastructure such as buoys and metocean platforms.
As part of the campaign, The Birdwatcher includes an interactive microsite, social media documentation of bird activity and an augmented-reality bird guide distributed to stakeholders to make the data more accessible to policymakers, industry players and the public.
Ask Helseth, CEO of Spoor said: “Every wind project faces the same question from regulators, communities and investors: what happens to the birds? We built the technology to answer that with evidence, not assumptions. The data shows coexistence is achievable, and it should no longer sit buried in reports that most people never read.”
Federico Fanti, Regional Chief Creative Officer at FP7 McCann MENAT, added: “Our objective was to make complex data impossible to ignore,” said Federico Fanti, Regional Chief Creative Officer, FP7 McCANN MENAT. “By making it continuously visible, both online and in the real world, we ensured it reached the people who have the power to act. The argument against wind energy was built on missing data. Spoor produced it. The Birdwatcher makes sure the world sees it.”
Spoor said the initiative is intended to show how improved biodiversity intelligence can help the wind energy sector expand while addressing environmental concerns through evidence-based monitoring.
