Former Peregrine Fund Board Member and accomplished raptor researcher and falconer, Morley Nelson, was one of the first people to recognize that birds of prey were regularly being electrocuted on power lines. These electrocutions often caused power outages and wildfires, so he formed a collaboration with the Idaho Power Company. Together they accomplished research, helped develop guards, and redesigned distribution power lines to reduce electrocution. These efforts have continued and are now in effect globally.

Today, we are working around the globe to ensure that birds of prey and other wildlife are safe from our power technology. In the Dominican Republic, we have worked to place covers over dangerous power lines in order to prevent Critically Endangered Ridgway's Hawks from becoming electrocuted. 

Eagles that fly through a wind facility run the risk of injury or death from collision with a turbine blade. Unfortunately there is nothing in a bird’s evolutionary history that informs it of the dangers of wind turbines. The good news is that Dr. Chris McClure of The Peregrine Fund has been working with biologists from Western EcoSystems Technology and the American Wind Wildlife Institute to test a new technology that has the potential to prevent collisions from occurring.

IdentiFlight is a new, camera-base monitoring system that detects, classifies, and track birds then shut down the turbine rotors as needed. When the team compared IdentiFlight’s ability to detect birds versus the ability of humans to detect birds, IdentiFlight succeeded in detecting 96% of the birds detected by observers and 562% more birds than observers. The study concluded that automated cameras can be an effective way to detect birds in flight and identify eagles.

Read more about our study on IdentiFlight.