First shipwrecks. Then oil rigs. Now, it’s offshore wind turbines that are becoming artificial reefs for creatures from haddock to lobster.
When ecologist Anthony Bicknell went looking for fish around the foundations of wind turbines a dozen or so miles off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea, he wasn’t sure what he’d find.
But he was ready for something surprising. Around that time, some European lobsters were catching researchers off guard by taking up residence in wind turbine foundations in the waters off of the British Isles. Sure enough, Bicknell and his team counted two more sea creatures that scientists had never documented congregating around wind turbines: a flatfish known as a dab and, most strikingly, haddock.
Haddock is one of Scotland’s highest-value commercial fish, ranking above cod and just below herring in total number of fish caught annually. Unlike cod, haddock don’t usually hang out around shipwrecks and other human-made structures on the seafloor.
The discovery that these sleek silvery fish are utilizing wind foundations, described in a study published earlier this year, demonstrates how much researchers are still learning about the potential benefits of installing wind structures in the ocean floor.
Offshore wind is growing rapidly in some parts of the world, particularly in northern Europe and China, as nations look to complement other carbon-free resources like solar.
In the U.S., the industry has faced opposition from the fishing industry, environmentalists, and other anti-wind groups who have raised concerns about how turbines will affect marine life. False claims about offshore wind’s impact on ocean animals — especially whales — have been spread by opponents including President Donald Trump, who issued an executive order on his first day in office that has slowed the industry to a crawl.
The new study from Bicknell, a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter, is the latest in a growing body of research that suggests offshore wind turbines, like other hard structures introduced to the seabed, can not only coexist with marine life but potentially benefit certain species.
Scientists have repeatedly found, for example, that an oil rig or oil platform can become an oasis of hard structure in ocean expanses devoid of much else but sand. They attract barnacles, shellfish, invertebrates, and, eventually, the fish that like to eat those creatures. An entire food web can grow.
Studies like Bicknell’s find the same phenomenon is playing out around some wind turbines installed on the seafloor of the North Sea. Except, unlike oil rigs, these massive pieces of infrastructure are helping to reduce the carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, which is rapidly warming the ocean and devastating marine life worldwide.