JUNE 24, 2020
Suspended, rotating
devices known as "flappers" may be the key to fewer birds flying into
power lines, a study by Oregon State University suggests.
The findings by
researchers in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences are important because
around the globe both the number of power lines and concern over bird fatalities
are on the rise.
Research has documented
more than 300 species of birds dying from hitting
power lines, with one study estimating that more than 170 million perish
annually in the United States and another estimating the global death toll to
be 1 billion per year. There's also the problem of power outages that bird
strikes can cause.
Conservation managers and
utilities many years ago developed flight diverters, basically regularly spaced
devices that make the lines more visible, as a step toward reducing the number
of birds flying into the lines.
The most common type are the PVC spirals, which are durable and
easy to install, but how well they actually work isn't well understood. Though
they've been in use for nearly four decades, strike rates remain high for a
number of species.
OSU researchers Virginia
Morandini and Ryan Baumbusch were part of an international collaboration that
compared the effectiveness of three types of flight diverters: yellow PVC spiral; orange PVC spiral; and a flapper model with three orange and
red polypropylene blades with reflective stickers.
The flapper hangs from
a power line and its blades, 21
centimeters by 6.2 centimeters, rotate around a vertical axis.
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