SmartBirds
Photo: © Mehmet Hanay
Another Imperial eagle with the satellite transmitter was electrocuted. The fatal accident happened last week in the European part of Turkey.
After receiving an alarm signal from the transmitter, we contacted our colleagues Mehmet Hanay and Caner Özdemir from the NGO Doku Dernegi who responded quickly and were able to find the bird’s carcass. The dead eagle was tagged by a BSPB team this summer in a nest in southeastern Bulgaria. The other young eagle hatched in that nest was also electrocuted this month near Stara Zagora. Thus, 3 out of 6 Imperial eagles tagged with transmitters in two years died when perching on dangerous power line poles.
Photo: © Stoycho Stoychev/BSPB
In Turkey as well as in Bulgaria, a large part of power lines are dangerous, especially for large birds of prey and storks, but also for smaller species, such as crows and falcons. Some of them are real death traps, killing dozens of birds every year. BSPB and DOKU have started a joint project for the protection of the Imperial eagle in Turkey, which aims to study the problem in the European part of Turkey and present the experience of Bulgaria in reducing the mortality of the birds on power lines.
Photo: © Mehmet Hanay
