Project a big threat to birdlife

THE Sun Cable overhead transmission line corridor could become a bird graveyard if studies in Europe are any indication of what might happen along the 66km route proposed in the Darwin rural area.

I have noted the book Protecting Birds from Powerlines, by the German Society for Nature Conservation, Birdlife in Germany.

This excerpt on bird collision jumped off the pages at me.

“Many important investigations on bird collision have been performed on high and highest voltage power lines. From randomly selected sections of power lines in the interior often quite low collision losses are reported. However, in important areas of bird migration considerable losses occur. Birds migrating at night and birds flying regularly between feeding areas and resting areas are particularly at risk when power lines cut across their migration corridors or their staging/wintering areas. At such locations, bird losses can exceed 500 casualties per kilometre of powerline in one year.”

This could mean the 66km stretch of OHTLs from Livingstone to Gunn Point beach may kill more than 33,000 birds a year, with some of the most susceptible being magpie geese, brolga, jabiru, pelican and white-breasted sea eagles.

If this was extrapolated over the entire length of the OHTLs 400,000 birds could be injured and killed each year.

Cranes and storks, of which families the brolga and jabiru respectively belong, are very susceptible.

The areas where the Sun Cable is directed past or through Black Jungle, Lambells Lagoon, Howard Swamp and Shoal Bay Coastal Conservation reserves are known feeding, resting and nesting sites for magpie geese, jabiru, brolga, pelican, wedge-tailed and white-breasted sea eagles.

The attraction of the fruit crops in the Lambells Lagoon area will have geese constantly encountering these wires as they fly between the orchards for food and back to the swamps for water.

Gunn Point Road corridor will become a cemetery as tens of thousands of geese fly throughout the night, and at dawn and dusk in this region.

This is a $30bn project backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who are collectively worth more than $25bn.

With 4200km of cable undersea able to be laid in a trench and recovered to protect it from being damaged, it seems entirely feasible to me that a further 66km could be put in a trench and recovered on land to protect it from cyclone damage and protect 33,000 native Australian birds every year.

Maybe with the carnage each kilometre of cable will cause, cables should be undergrounded where the route spans or comes near to wetlands to avoid this avian apocalypse.

Want to win a gun, then don’t forget the NT Field and Game Festival of Clays starting this Friday to Sunday. There is a door prize of a shotgun to be won each day at the Mickett Creek Shooting Complex range. All welcome.