Protecting rare birds from power-line electrocution, and collisions with power lines and wind turbines, fully independently of utility collaboration

Collaboration with utilities can be unnervingly slow, and time is running out for many species. bAWARE puts the protection on the bird itself: a wearable sensor and alarm detects a live line by pure physics, totally permissionless from the utility, and warns the bird away before it touches the wire. GPS geofencing warns of wind turbines.

Retrofitting the poles is right, and we support it actively. But it cannot keep pace with construction and cannot follow a migrating bird across a border.
bAWARE is built for that gap.

Why electrocution matters for rare species

Power lines electrocute a bird roughly every three seconds, some ten million birds a year [1]. Nobody can count every pole on earth, so that is an order-of-magnitude figure. It matches the best peer-reviewed estimate for a single country: 0.9 to 11.6 million birds electrocuted a year in the United States alone [2].

Large birds of prey pay the highest price. In Europe, electrocution is a main cause of death for large eagles and owls and has driven population declines in some species [3]. Among tracked large migratory birds on the African-Eurasian flyway whose human-caused death had a known cause, electrocution was the most common, at 40.5 % [4]. Some examples:

• Spanish imperial eagle. Electrocution was the most frequent cause of death, about 40 % of recorded deaths. After 6,560 dangerous pylons in Andalucía were corrected, electrocutions fell by 62 % across the region [5].
• Cape vulture. In high-risk parts of South Africa’s Eastern Cape, electrocution alone was predicted to drive the local population extinct within 20 to 35 years [6].
• Saker falcon. Surveys of Mongolian power lines between 2013 and 2018 found 1,721 electrocuted saker falcons, 88 % of them young birds [7].
• Egyptian vulture. Seventeen dead Egyptian vultures were found under a single 31 km stretch of line near Port Sudan, possibly enough to help explain the species’ decline in the Middle East [8].
• Bonelli’s eagle. In eastern Spain, where the species has declined by almost half in 25 years, 33 of 60 GPS-tracked territorial eagles died between 2015 and 2023. Electrocution was the most common human cause, killing six; three more died in collisions with power lines [9].
• Kenya. In a first assessment of the country’s grid, six of the seven distribution pole designs examined posed an electrocution risk to medium-sized and large birds [10].

Why the protection has to travel with the bird

The martial eagle is listed as Endangered and has declined by about 90 % over three generations [11]. In South Africa’s Kruger National Park, tracked territorial martial eagles held home ranges of about 108 km², and two adults without a territory ranged over some 44,000 km². One of the tagged eagles was electrocuted [12]. No utility can make every pole safe across ranges like that, and a migrating bird crosses borders that no single utility or authority controls. Protected areas do not close the gap either. Of the 33 GPS-tracked Bonelli’s eagles that died in eastern Spain between 2015 and 2023, only two died inside a protected area, although most of them bred in one [9].

Retrofitting protects every bird, but only at the poles that have been fixed. bAWARE warns only the bird that wears it, but at any live line that bird meets. The two approaches have opposite blind spots. That is exactly why both are needed.

How it works for the bird

• The sensor detects the electromagnetic field around a live line, of any relevant voltage, anywhere on earth.
• An acoustic warning starts at ~50 m. At ~30 m a harmless electro-tactile stimulus discourages approach. Both distances can be set before tagging or later changed over the air.
• Buzzers alone fail, because birds get used to sound. The sound’s job is to announce the stimulus, so that the bird can learn to turn away on the sound alone.
• Birds have carried radio-telemetry, fitted by falconers and conservationists, for decades. bAWARE is carried the same way, and a deliberate remote release mechanism that lets the unit come off at a chosen moment and place for animal welfare and tag recovery is included.

What researchers get

The first product combines a bAWARE board, carrying the sensor and the alarms, with a fully featured classic GPS tag from Druid Technology (LEGO 4G). The combination is what lets us measure exactly how birds react to the alarms, which is the evidence field trials need.
As Gunter Schoech puts it: “Scientists start measuring why birds live, instead of monitoring how they die.”

Where we stand (September 2026)

Powerline sensor, electro-tactile stimulus and release now work in prototype, repeatedly, on real power lines and on live birds. The integrated system soon needs controlled field trials and quantified proof.

We are not seeking funding: R&D is covered. What we ask of species programmes is what money cannot buy us: field partners, species access and scientific standing.

Talk to us

bAWARE is coming soon, and we want to hear from the people who will use it as early as possible. If your programme tags birds that die on power lines, tell us about it through the contact page, and ask us about becoming a field partner for the controlled trials.

Who we are looking for

Related: Bird electrocution: the methods compared · FAQ

Sources

1. Munir Virani, Chief Operating Officer of MBZRF (Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund), “What raptors teach us about saving life on Earth”, TEDxOxford, published 16 July 2026, at 0:57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5E1TrNhuXg&t=57s
2. Loss, S.R., Will, T. & Marra, P.P. (2014). Refining estimates of bird collision and electrocution mortality at power lines in the United States. PLoS ONE 9(7): e101565. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101565
3. Slater, S.J., Dwyer, J.F. & Murgatroyd, M. (2020). Conservation Letter: Raptors and Overhead Electrical Systems. Journal of Raptor Research 54(2): 198–203. https://doi.org/10.3356/0892-1016-54.2.198
4. Serratosa, J. et al. (2024). Tracking data highlight the importance of human-induced mortality for large migratory birds at a flyway scale. Biological Conservation 293: 110525. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110525
5. López-López, P. et al. (2011). Solving man-induced large-scale conservation problems: the Spanish imperial eagle and power lines. PLoS ONE 6(3): e17196. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017196
6. Boshoff, A.F., Minnie, J.C., Tambling, C.J. & Michael, M.D. (2011). The impact of power line-related mortality on the Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres in a part of its range, with an emphasis on electrocution. Bird Conservation International 21(3): 311–327. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095927091100013X
7. Dixon, A. et al. (2020). Variation in Electrocution Rate and Demographic Composition of Saker Falcons Electrocuted at Power Lines in Mongolia. Journal of Raptor Research 54(2): 136–146. https://doi.org/10.3356/0892-1016-54.2.136
8. Angelov, I., Hashim, I. & Oppel, S. (2013). Persistent electrocution mortality of Egyptian Vultures Neophron percnopterus over 28 years in East Africa. Bird Conservation International 23(1): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270912000123
9. López-Peinado, A., Urios, V. & López-López, P. (2024). A comprehensive analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of anthropogenic adult mortality of Bonelli’s eagles in eastern Spain. Journal of Wildlife Management 88(8): e22643. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22643
10. Smallie, J. & Virani, M.Z. (2010). A preliminary assessment of the potential risks from electrical infrastructure to large birds in Kenya. Scopus 30: 32–39. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/scopus/article/view/108252
11. Shaw, P., Ogada, D., Dunn, L. et al. (2024). African savanna raptors show evidence of widespread population collapse and a growing dependence on protected areas. Nature Ecology & Evolution 8(1): 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02236-0
12. van Eeden, R., Whitfield, D.P., Botha, A. & Amar, A. (2017). Ranging behaviour and habitat preferences of the Martial Eagle: Implications for the conservation of a declining apex predator. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0173956. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173956