ARCHIVED  September 8, 2000

Protecting birds and the bottom line

New technology aims to keep birds flying, power company profits soaring

Normally when Rocky Mountain Raptor Center director Judy Scherpelz sees an eagle or hawk perched upon a power line crossbar, her breath catches in her throat.

But as she watched Raptor Center volunteer Nancy Prior purposely lift a young golden eagle toward a crossbar a few weeks ago, Scherpelz’s breathing didn’t falter a bit. That’s because the eagle was being placed atop the power pole to demonstrate Safe-Bird, a new product aimed at saving both raptor lives and utility-company profits.

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The power lines, constructed inside a flight cage at the Raptor Center behind the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, were dead. If they weren’t, it is likely the 6-year-old golden eagle would have died the minute he spread his wings. At least 1,450 raptors — birds of prey such as eagles, hawks and owls — have died in the past 10 years in the Western United States from electrocution, according to a recent CSU thesis.

Raptor deaths aren’t caused by perching on the power lines, but from perching between them on the crossbars. When the birds take off, spreading their wings — which can stretch as wide as 71/2 feet — they may contact two live wires, sending the current pulsing through their bodies, said Mike Lynch, a retired Sierra Pacific Power Company lineman who helped develop Safe-Bird.

Raptor deaths on power lines mean double trouble for utility providers. They can cause power outages that send crews scrambling to repair damage and restore service. But the bird kills also result in heavy fines for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. If a bird of prey protected under the Act is killed by electrocution on a power company’s lines, the utility can be fined as much as $100,000.

“That’s not mandatory,´ said Roger Gephart, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service senior Colorado agent. “It can be less than that.”

Typically, enforcement officers and courts view each situation before levying fines, he said. If a raptor dies from power-line electrocution, Gephart said, it viewed as a liability offense, meaning that even if a company didn’t intend to kill the bird of prey it still did something that caused its death.

In a recent case, Moon Lake Electric Association of Roosevelt, Utah, was ordered to pay $100,000 in fines and restitution for the electrocution deaths of 17 federally protected birds in Western Colorado.

The Moon Lake case set the standard, Gephart said. The standard is if an incident is “foreseeable and preventable.”

Raptor deaths on power lines are both, he said.

“It’s preventable. With the structure of the lines, raptor-proofing materials and training and education, you can certainly minimize the impact of the utility,” Gephart said.

A partnership, which reaches from Fort Collins to Texas, California and Nevada, is aiming to protect the birds and the utility companies by adding a protective feature to power lines: Safe-Bird can cover overhead power-pole insulators and a portion of lines in plastic casing.

Lynch and partner James “Buzz” Weldy developed Safe-Bird through their company Energy Connection. They enlisted the biological expertise of Rick Harness, an environmental specialist at Fort Collins-based EDM International. Petroflex North America, Inc. — a Gainesville, Texas-based manufacturer of plastic products for the telephone and power industries — was brought in to create prototypes.

Then the partnership came for Fort Collins to test the product on the mock power poles erected by Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association at the Raptor Center.

“It’s so exciting to be involved in a project that is going to reduce the number of electrocutions,” Scherpelz said.

The Raptor Center is currently housing a raptor that was electrocuted on a power line. That bird will never be released into the wild again. He is luckier than most. The majority of raptors who are electrocuted on power lines are killed, Scherpelz said.

Birds and power lines almost go together, though. Everyone has seen row upon row of feathered fliers lined up along power lines. Those birds are smaller than raptors, Weldy said. When they take flight, their wings cannot touch two wires. But raptors are much bigger. Even owls can have a 4-foot-wing span putting them at risk for electrocution, Scherpelz said.

Most technology designed to prevent bird electrocutions is designed to prevent birds from perching atop power poles in the first place, Lynch said.

“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.

Stephanie Jones, a non-game migratory-bird coordinator at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Denver office, said raptors are naturally drawn to power poles because of the vantage point they offer.

“Without poles, they would use trees, stumps,” she said. “(From power poles) they can see their prey items with an eagle’s-eye view. ` We put something up there that brings them in and then kills them.”

Safe-Bird is among the first technology to try and find a way for the power lines and birds to co-exist.

“It saves (raptors), it saves the utilities. It’s a win-win situation,” Lynch said.

Safe-Bird and its plastic casings are a relatively simple concept, too.

“Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ideas,” Harness said.

Safe-Bird also is simple for power-company linemen to install, said Jerry Admire, a Petroflex sales engineer.

“It’s lineman-friendly,” Admire said. “If it’s not easy to put up, linemen aren’t going to use it.”

Safe-Bird is still in the development stages, but Lynch expects the safety device could be test marketed to power companies across the country in as few as 60 or 90 days. How much Safe-Bird will cost power companies also will emerge in the next few months as the final manufacturing materials are determined.

Its impact is likely to be felt across the globe. EDM’s clients span the world, Lynch said, which means Safe-Bird could be installed, tested and monitored in Alaska, South America, South Africa and Israel, to name just a few locations.

Mexico’s Commission Federal de Electricidad (federal commission of electricity) could put Safe-Bird immediately to use in Chihuahua.

Chihuahua is home to the world’s largest remaining prairie dog colony, making it a huge wintering area for birds of prey, Harness said. Chihuahua is also home to a large Mennonite community that recently began using electricity. That means birds are interacting with power lines on a more frequent and more dangerous basis.

On a recent trip to Chihuahua, Harness and a Mexican biologist documented the electrocution deaths of 10 golden eagles, 30 Chihuahuan ravens and another dozen birds of prey.

New technology aims to keep birds flying, power company profits soaring

Normally when Rocky Mountain Raptor Center director Judy Scherpelz sees an eagle or hawk perched upon a power line crossbar, her breath catches in her throat.

But as she watched Raptor Center volunteer Nancy Prior purposely lift a young golden eagle toward a crossbar a few weeks ago, Scherpelz’s breathing didn’t falter a bit. That’s because the eagle was being placed atop the power pole to demonstrate Safe-Bird, a new product aimed at saving both raptor lives and utility-company profits.

The power lines, constructed inside a flight cage at the Raptor Center…

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