This project mitigates the impacts of power generation and transmission infrastructure on birds and other biota. The focus is on both collision impacts associated with powerlines, which mainly affect large, open-country birds such as bustards and cranes and the impacts of renewable energy technologies, including wind and solar power generation.

Wind and solar power generation have much less broad-scale environmental impact than the coal-fired power stations on which South Africa relies for most of its electricity, but both technologies can have significant impacts at a local scale. The aim of this programme is to provide practical solutions to reduce the impacts of renewable energy projects, as well as energy transmission infrastructure, on birds in southern Africa. The programme is run in collaboration with BirdLife South Africa’s Birds and Renewable Energy programme, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and HawkWatch International (HWI).

Activities in 2024

  • PhD student Christie Craig, based at the EWT, submitted her PhD on the viability of Blue Crane Anthropoides paradisea populations in the Western Cape and Karoo for examination in February 2024. Powerline collisions are one of the main threats to Blue Cranes, and assessing the severity of this threat formed the basis of one of the chapters of her thesis. She found that proximity to seasonal wetlands was a useful predictor of collision risk in the Western Cape, which will be useful for planning the routing of new power lines as well as mitigating collision risk by retrospective marking of existing high-risk lines.
  • Robin Colyn completed drafts of most of the chapters for his PhD on the factors determining the distributions of range-restricted larks across an aridity gradient in southern Africa. The Red Lark Certhilauda burra is a species of particular concern, given the large number of wind energy projects planned in the range of this localised, vulnerable species, and the high mortality rate of larks that undertake aerial displays at windfarms.
  • PhD student Merlyn Nkomo continued her PhD research into the potential impacts of wind farms on Jackal Buzzards Buteo rufofuscus. Merlyn spent some time in the USA working with collaborators at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary analysing her GPS tracking data.
  • Megan Murgatroyd and Arjun Amar continued their research on Black Harriers Circus maurus with the aim of providing tools to reduce the impact of wind energy developments on this vulnerable species. A further three adult Harriers were fitted with trackers in 2024, bringing the total to 20 individuals. In 2024, we also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with another research group (Overberg Renosterveld Trust and Birds and Bats Unlimited) to collectively share our tracking data, which will improve our ability to provide useful recommendations to the wind energy sector to minimise the impact of wind energy developments.
  • Arjun Amar and Megan Murgatroyd were also involved in several projects where wind farms will undertake patterning of wind turbine blades to test whether this mitigation method can reduce the number of birds killed by wind turbines. The team has been trapping and tracking Verreaux’s Eagles Aquila verreauxii at a wind farm in the Karoo, where blade patterning on existing turbines will occur in 2025, to explore how the species avoids areas near to wind turbines once a blade is patterned. The team has also been working with developers at another site that will be built in 2025, in which a third of the turbines will be patterned and the remaining being left as controls to explore differences in fatality rates at the two types of turbines. 

Highlights:

  • Christie Craig was awarded her PhD in 2024. She was the first Fitz PhD student to elect to undergo an online defence of her thesis, an experience which she enjoyed!
  • Merlyn Nkomo published the first chapter of her PhD which explored the co-production of a research agenda for Jackal Buzzards and wind farms involving different stakeholders. This paper was published in Ostrich in 2024.
  • Megan Murgatroyd attended the Bird and Renewable Energy Forum, where she presented an update on the range of projects that the team is working on.
  • Megan Murgatroyd and Arjun Amar submitted a paper to Ecology & Evolution, which refined the output of our VERA model to reduce uncertainty about its application by developers.

Key co-supporters
Endangered Wildlife Trust – Eskom Strategic Partnership; The Bateleurs; BirdLife South Africa; BTE Renewables; Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust; Leiden Conservation Fund; Dave Myers; The ABAX Foundation; The Shannon Elizabeth Foundation; Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT).

Research team 2024
Emer. Prof. Peter Ryan (FIAO, UCT)
A/Prof. Arjun Amar (FIAO, UCT)
Dr Megan Murgatroyd (HawkWatch International, FIAO, UCT)
A/Prof. Robert Thomson (FIAO, UCT)
A/Prof. Susie Cunningham (FIAO, UCT)
Dr Chris Vennum (FIAO, UCT)
Dr Rob Simmons (Birds and Bats Unlimited)

Students: Robin Colyn (PhD, UCT); Christie Craig (PhD, UCT); Merlyn Nkomo (PhD, UCT), Yusra Samsodien (MSc, UCT).