The Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax fleayi), a distinct and critically endangered subspecies, faces significant threats that imperil its survival. With an estimated population of only around 1,000 adult birds, the primary contemporary dangers stem from direct interactions with human infrastructure, particularly collisions and electrocutions with overhead power lines and wind turbines.
In response to this urgent conservation challenge, a collaboration has emerged between TasNetworks, Tasmania’s electricity transmission and distribution provider, and University of Tasmania researchers led by Dr James Pay.
This partnership has successfully developed and implemented a sophisticated, data-driven risk mapping tool. This innovative tool, informed by extensive high-frequency GPS telemetry of eagle flight paths, accurately predicts collision hotspots, enabling highly-targeted and proactive mitigation efforts.
Their statement on the collaboration is reproduced below.
Media release – University of Tasmania, 19 June 2025
Creating safer skies for Tasmania’s wedge-tailed eagles
University of Tasmania researchers have developed a powerful risk mapping tool to help prevent fatal collisions between endangered wedge-tailed eagles and overhead power lines.
Dr James Pay and his team from the School of Natural Sciences analysed six years of GPS tracking data from 23 eagles for research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Using this data, they built a detailed model that predicts where eagles are most likely to cross power lines at low altitudes, which is where the risk of collision is highest.
The study found that eagles are more likely to make hazardous crossings in areas with a mix of open land and forest edges, particularly in remote regions. Seasonal changes also played a role, with risky crossings peaking in autumn and winter.
“Nearly 50 per cent of known collisions occurred on the 20 per cent of Tasmania’s power line network with the highest risk,” Dr Pay said.
Over 723,000 low-altitude eagle flight steps were analysed, with more than 9,400 power line crossings at risky altitudes.
Dr Pay said this data was particularly valuable because power line collisions were one of the leading causes of injury and death for large birds of prey in Tasmania and globally.
“Between 2017 and 2023, 110 wedge-tailed eagles were confirmed as injured or killed by power line infrastructure in Tasmania.
“The impact of collisions on the birds is significant, so rather than relying solely on reported fatalities, which can be biased or incomplete, we can now use the information we have about eagles’ flight paths to accurately predict where collision risk is highest and act before incidents happen,” he said.
The university is working hand-in-hand with TasNetworks, Tasmania’s electricity transmission and distribution provider, and the new model is already helping guide conservation strategies across the state.
TasNetworks’ Leader of Environment and Sustainability, Ed Parker, said the business has significantly reduced bird deaths in high-risk areas in recent years, but there’s more work to do and no room for complacency.
“Our people are very passionate about protecting iconic birds, and we invest almost $1 million each year,” Mr Parker said.
“We’ve already mitigated more than 600 kilometres of high-risk powerlines by installing flappers, perches and covers.
We’ve also applied the new Delta design standard, which spreads lines further apart to reduce electrocution risk.
New technologies are making a big difference.
“Our strong relationship with the University of Tasmania and Dr Pay’s new research, will be invaluable towards our target of reducing threatened bird incidents by 25 per cent by 2032,” he said.
Dr Pay said the model could also be used when planning new essential infrastructure and for targeted biodiversity conservation efforts, offering a data-driven approach to protecting wildlife.
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Ben Marshall
June 20, 2025 at 12:36
With respect … no, the skies are not going to be safer for wedge-tailed eagles. They are, if TasNetworks (one of the sponsors of this research) has its way, going to be much less safe.
TasNetworks’ distribution lines (local poles and wires) and transmission lines (the big towers taking power long distances eg to the Mainland) are one of the big killers of eagles. TasNetworks spends a lot of money on PR to water down community dismay and frustration at its poor record of mitigation methods, and a few grand on this research is, frankly, part of that.
With respect to Dr Pays’ work, it tells us a little more but doesn’t address the big issues, the biggest of which is TasNetworks’ proposal to massively expand its transmission grid via Project Marinus and the North West Transmission Development. Hundreds of kilometres of new transmission lines, paid for by our power bills, will bulldoze farms and forests through wedge-tailed eagles’ territories. It’s inevitable that more eagles, and other raptors, will die. Assuming Pays’ research was to somehow achieve a marginal improvement in line management from TasNet, it might hypothetically slow the rate at which deaths occur – until those new lines are built.
And those lines – the vast new grid supporting the export of privately owned renewable energy to the Mainland via Marinus Link – will, according to TasNetworks, only increase if global energy speculators invest in more renewable energy in our north. TasNetworks, as Jurisdictional Planner of the energy sector, is planning, and hoping for, many more towers, poles and wires to cover our north to support renewable energy investors. If Robbins Island is greenlit it signals that there’s no limit, no obstacle, no environmental or community issues that will prevent renewables investors setting up where they want, when they want. Our north will be industrialised, at enormous cost socially and environmentally, for foreign investors to sell to the National Energy Market. Wedge-tailed eagles, already declining, will be killed or driven from the north, and more developments in the south will see them reduced to pathetic exhibits in zoos.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Our politicians could implement ‘due diligence’ and see that Marinus costs .. but doesn’t benefit us, then begin planning the energy, environment and economic sectors with communities, more affordably, for our benefit. And, in the process, we’d have a tiny chance of preventing the extinction of one of the most magnificent animals on the planet.
Ted Mead
June 20, 2025 at 14:19
Hear, Hear! Ben.