Vulture deaths: Who is to blame?

18/06/2015 Prince Letlape and David Lebele from City of Tshwane's energy and electricity division fit bird flaps with deflectors on electricity power lines around Boekenhoutkloof with the intention of bringing down the number of electocutions of vultures in the area. Picture: Phill Magakoe

18/06/2015 Prince Letlape and David Lebele from City of Tshwane's energy and electricity division fit bird flaps with deflectors on electricity power lines around Boekenhoutkloof with the intention of bringing down the number of electocutions of vultures in the area. Picture: Phill Magakoe

Published Sep 11, 2015

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Durban - Eskom has come under fire for not doing enough to stop endangered vultures being maimed or fried alive on power lines across the country.

Last week, another four Cape Vultures were electrocuted almost simultaneously on an old power line network near Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape.

The Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres) is already extinct as a breeding species in neighbouring Namibia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland, and there are now fewer than 4 000 breeding pairs in South Africa.

They are also vulnerable to pesticide poisoning. Recently, 66 vultures were poisoned in the Lowveld.

Conservation group Vulpro said the latest electrocutions should be ringing alarm bells for Eskom’s environmental management division.

This year, Vulpro had been “inundated” with cases of birds maimed by power lines. Most had permanent wing damage and would never fly again.

“Eskom has a history of reactive management as opposed to proactive mitigation and continues to operate largely in this manner.

Warning devices

“It is vital that Eskom become more active in preventing the total decline of all vulture populations in Southern Africa,” said Vulpro spokeswoman Kerri Wolter.

She said more work was needed to mitigate the impact of power lines, including bird “flapper” warning devices, insulating sleeves and improved design.

“All old structures in close proximity to breeding, roosting and feeding sites should be mitigated to bird-friendly designs.”

In response, Eskom said it had a policy that all new power line infrastructure should be designed according to “bird-friendly principles”.

The policy also aimed to replace older “bird-unfriendly” lines with better designs when these power lines were due for refurbishment.

Before the early 1990s most power lines were not subject to environmental impact assessments.

“For a power line to be bird-friendly it must not be possible for birds with large wingspans (like vultures) to breach the gap between two live conductors. To reduce the risk of bird elctrocutions on these structures, a large black cover is placed over the live phases to insulate the live components.”

However, fitting these devices was costly (R1 850 a structure), time-consuming and required specially trained teams.

Eskom said it had completed a study to identify priority areas.

“These maps will be used to focus mitigation projects aimed at proactively replacing existing bird-unfriendly power lines.”

The Mercury

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