High bird mortality due to power lines invokes urgent environmental mitigation in a tropical desert

• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109262
• Publication Date: 2021-08-13T23:39:35Z
• Authors: Mohib Uddin; Sutirtha Dutta; Vishnupriya Kolip...; Hrishika Sharma; Farha Usmani; Yadvendradev Jhala
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences

Abstract Electricity supply lines through wildlife habitats can adversely affect biodiversity, yet lack of evidence impedes their mitigation in tropical developing countries. We assessed power line induced bird mortality in 4200 km2 area of the Thar desert, India during 2017–18. We searched for carcasses in 2000 × 60 m2 belts along 40 randomly selected power lines over six multi-season surveys, and in 20 control transects that were surveyed once. We experimentally corrected for count biases by estimating persistence and detection probabilities of 88 fresh carcasses, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and binomial GLM, respectively. Scaling mortality by power line crossings of bird families, we examined the influence of group traits on vulnerability, using GLM. We examined the effect of power line mortality on population viability of the Critically Endangered great Indian bustard. We found 289 carcasses of >40 species at power lines and none at control transects. As expected, carcass persistence time and detectability were lower for small birds ( 1000 g). Bias-adjusted mortality was estimated at 3.05 carcasses (95% CI 0.82–6.03) and 5.97 (2.5–10.50) carcasses km−1 month−1 for