Larger birds of prey had a higher electrocution rate than smaller species. Bird electrocution occurred mostly on concrete pylons with jumpers above the cross-arm. We found 34 electrocuted individuals of four bird families that constitute an annual bird electrocution rate of 0.011 bird/pylon/year. We described the structural design of 3,118 surveyed electricity pylons. We conducted six bimonthly power line and raptor surveys throughout 355 km of lines and roads covering an area of approximately 12,000 km 2. Here we estimate electro-cution rates for birds on power lines covering both arid and semiarid biomes of central Argentina. Almost nothing is known, however, about the impact of power lines on this group of birds in the Neotropical Region. Summary High mortality by electrocution has been suggested to be the main factor behind the reduction of several birds of prey populations across the world. We urgently need more scientific knowledge to provide adequate responses to the challenge of keeping healthy populations of avian predators and scavengers in a rapidly changing world.īird Conservation International, page 1 of 13. Finally, we explored in depth the ecological response of birds of prey to large-scale habitat changes such as urbanisation and abandonment of marginal lands that are also expected to increase in the near future. Also, the rampant humanization of the environment determines the need for new solutions to the growing, yet scarcely explored, problem of accidents in new infrastructures such as mortality in wind farms. Moreover, we revisited persisting conflicts with human interests (predation of game species) and call attention to the emergence of new conflicts with a strong social and media component such as the predation on live cattle by vultures. On this basis, and from a preferentially Mediterranean perspective, we have focused our attention on the need of describing and quantifying the role of these birds as providers of both regulating (rodent pest control and removal of livestock carcasses) and cultural ecosystem services. These changes pose new challenges when addressing the conservation of raptors in the coming decades. Today, after more than a century of persecution, and with the exception of some vultures still very much affected by illegal poisoning, many populations of birds of prey have experienced significant recoveries in many regions of Spain and the European Mediterranean. Nonetheless, they have attracted a strong interest from the point of view of conservation biology because many populations have been close to extinction and because of their recognised role in ecosystems as top predators and scavengers and as flagship species. Birds of prey have been, in comparison to other avian groups, an uncommon study model, mainly due to the limitations imposed by their conservative life strategy (low population density and turnover).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |