Full project title:
Hope for birds
Duration:
1st January 2019 – 30th November 2020
Total budget:
22,431.50 €
Partners: MAVA Foundation, BirdLife International
Lead beneficiary:
Association Biom
Contact:
info@biom.hr
Project goals
To develop guidelines that will be tailored using international best practices in mitigating the impacts of power lines on birds, both through the mitigation of impacts on existing lines and through an improved planning framework for new infrastructure projects (power lines that will be ‘bird-friendly’).
Project summary
The harmful effects of overhead high-voltage power lines on birds are widely documented. The primary risk to birds is collision, and since these incidents generally do not cause damage to the lines or power outages in the system, they are almost never detected. On the other hand, collisions can be effectively prevented. The objective of this project is to develop guidelines that will be tailored using international best practices in mitigating the impacts of power lines on birds.
The harmful effects of overhead high-voltage power lines on birds are widely documented, but the severity of the problem varies considerably due to numerous local factors, including topography, habitat type, bird migration patterns, and bird anatomy and behavior. The primary risk to birds is collision, and since these incidents generally do not cause damage to the lines or power outages in the system, they are almost never detected. However, collisions can be effectively prevented through:
- careful planning of new infrastructure in order to avoid migration corridors,
- construction of new infrastructure that is designed to be bird-safe, or
- retrofitting existing power lines
Each of these approaches requires a certain level of awareness of bird conservation in the planning of infrastructure projects.
