Action

Action Synopsis: Bird Conservation About Actions

Insulate power pylons to prevent electrocution

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    60%
  • Certainty
    45%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

A single before-and-after study in the USA found the insulating power pylons significantly reduced the number of Harris’s hawks Parabuteo unicinctus electrocuted.

 

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A before-and-after study in 2003 in urban environments in Tucson, Arizona, USA (Dwyer & Mannan 2007), found that there were significantly fewer electrocutions following the insulation of potentially dangerous elements of power pylons (1.4 electrocutions/nest before insulation vs. 0.2 electrocutions/nest afterwards). Any differentially energised hardware components, closer than 60 cm apart, on half the power poles within 300 m of 58 Harris’s hawk Parabuteo unicinctus nests were insulated.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Williams, D.R., Child, M.F., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Pople, R.G., Showler, D.A., Walsh, J.C., zu Ermgassen, E.K.H.J. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Bird Conservation. Pages 137-281 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

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Bird Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Bird Conservation
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What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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