Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2020 | 12(13): 16904–16908
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6198.12.13.16904-16908
#6198 | Received 20 May 2020 | Finally
accepted 03 September 2020
Power lines as a threat to a
canopy predator: electrocuted Harpy Eagle in southwestern Brazilian Amazon
Almério Câmara
Gusmão 1, Danilo Degra
2, Odair Diogo da
Silva 3, Lucas Simão de Souza 4,
Angélica Vilas Boas da Frota
5, Carlos Augusto Tuyama 6, Maria
Cristina Tuyama 7, Thatiane
Martins da Costa 8, Ana Paula Dalbem
9, Adrian A. Barnett 10, Francisca Helena Aguiar-Silva 11
& Manoel dos Santos Filho 12
1,12 Programa de Pós-Graduação
em Rede Bionorte, Av.
Santos Dumont, s/n° - Cidade Universitária
(Bloco II) CEP 78.200-000,
Cáceres – MT, Brazil.
2 Projeto Bioart. Av. São Paulo,
3898, Jardim Clodoaldo, CEP 76.963618, Cacoal – RO, Brazil.
3,5,8,9,12 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais
(PPGCA). Av. Santos Dumont, s/n° - Cidade Universitária (Bloco II)
CEP 78.200-000, Cáceres –
MT, Brazil.
1,3,4,6,7,8 Projeto Harpia, Núcleo
Rondônia. Grupo de Trabalho
e Conservação do Gavião-real
no Estado de Rondônia,
Av. São Paulo 4835, CEP 76940-000, Rolim
de Moura, Rondônia, RO, Brazil.
10,11 Instituto
Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Av. André
Araújo, 2936 Aleixo CEP 69067-375, Manaus, AM,
Brazil.
11 Centro
de Energia Nuclear na
Agricultura (CENA), Universidade de São Paulo (USP),
Av. Centenário, 303, São Dimas,
CEP 13400-970, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil.
12 Centro
de Pesquisa em Limnologia, Biodiversidade e Etnobiologia (CELBE) Pantanal, Universidade
do Estado de Mato Grosso. Av. Santos Dumont, s / n ° - Cidade
Universitária (Bloco II)
CEP 78.200-000, Cáceres - MT, Brasil.
1 almeriocg@hotmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 projetobioart@hotmail.com, 3 odair_diogo@hotmail.com,
4 lucas_sdesouza@hotmail.com, 5 angelicafrotaa@gmail.com, 6
ctuyama@gmail.com, 7 cristinatuyama10@gmail.com, 8
thaticpcl@gmail.com, 9 pauladalbem11@gmail.com, 10 adrian.barnett.biology2010@gmail.com, 11
aguiarsilva.fh@gmail.com, 12 msantosfilho@gmail.com
Editor: Priya Davidar,
Sigur Nature Trust, Nilgiris,
India. Date of publication: 26
September 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Gusmao,
A.C., D. Degra, O.D. da Silva, L.S. de Souza, A.V.B.
da Frota, C.A. Tuyama, M.C.
Tuyama, T.M. da Costa, A.P. Dalbem,
A.A. Barnett, F.H. Aguiar-Silva & M.d.S. Filho (2020). Power lines as a threat to a canopy predator:
electrocuted Harpy Eagle in southwestern Brazilian Amazon. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 12(13): 16904–16908. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6198.12.13.16904-16908
Copyright: © Gusmao et al. 2020. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to
the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank the Conselho de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the ODS Master and ACG and AVB
for PhD fellowship, and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for FHAS
Postdoctoral fellowship. We also thanks the Universidade
do Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). This is publication #12 of the Harpy Eagle
Project.
Harpy Eagle Harpia
harpyja Linnaeus, 1758 is the largest bird of
prey in the Americas (Sick 1997).
Globally listed as a Near Threatened (NT) species (Birdlife
International 2017), it is threatened with extinction in several countries
within its Central to South American geographic range. In Brazil, the species was classified in 2014
as Vulnerable (VU) (Brasil/MMA 2014a). Deforestation, habitat loss and hunting are
the main impacts affecting Harpy Eagle populations (Álvarez-Cordero 1996; Trinca et al. 2008; DeLuca 2012; Gusmão
et al. 2016; Birdlife International 2017).
Electrocution from power transmission lines is another threat affecting
large birds (e.g., eagle owls, Sergio et al. 2004; cranes, Shaw et al. 2010;
raptors, Lasch et al. 2010; storks, Kaluga et al.
2011; condors, Rideout et al. 2012; vultures, Angelov
et al. 2013). Such impacts may sometimes
be sufficiently severe to alter local species distributions (Sergio et al.
2004). The effects on Harpy Eagle
population dynamics of electrocution from collisions with power lines is
unknown. Modelling of a Bonelli’s Eagle Aquila fasciata
population predicted that even low levels of electrocution may threaten the
overall population viability of long-lived raptors (Hernández-Matías et al. 2015).
Concern over negative interaction between birds and
transmission lines began to emerge early in the 20th century
(Michener 1928). Most reported case
studies were of migratory birds and resident birds in North America, Europe,
Africa, Asia, and Oceania (Avery 1978; Salvador & Ibanez 2006; Lehman et
al. 2007; Kagan 2016; Mojica et al. 2018).
More recently this problem started attracting attention in South
American countries such as Argentina (Orellana & Cornejo 2010; Ibarra &
DeLucca 2015; Galmes et al.
2017), however, there has been little attention in Brazil, a country that has
an extensive network of high-tension transmission lines (see Raposo 2013).
Transmission lines drive several threats to Brazilian Amazon
conservation (Hyde et al. 2018), among which are bird collision risk and mortality. Studies of bird collision on high voltage
lines are still limited to licensing studies and mitigation measures (such as
bird flight diverters), with uncertainty as to their effectiveness (Biasotto et al. 2017; Biasotto
& Kindel 2018).
Harpy Eagle nesting trees have been mapped in Rondonia State (Costa et al. 2015; Gusmão
et al. 2016; Costa & Nunes 2017), a region of Brazilian Amazonia with
extensive anthropic impacts on biodiversity over the last 50 years (Fearnside et al. 2012; Ochoa-Quintero et al. 2015). Here we present a case study of a juvenile
Harpy Eagle electrocution in the southern region of the Amazon forest known as
the “arc of deforestation”.
The study site was located in Alta Floresta D’Oeste municipality, in the southwest center of Rondônia State, Brazil (Figure 1). In this area, the native forest is highly
fragmented as a result of land-use changes, resulting in a matrix of pasture
and commercial crops, with small blocks of poorly-connected forest (Fearnside 1989; Piontekowski et
al. 2019). The average annual
precipitation is 2,000mm and the average annual temperature is 24°C (Alvares et al. 2014).
On 29 August 2018, a juvenile Harpy Eagle female was
found dead (Image 1) below a Rural Aerial Power Distribution Network (RDR) with
standardized voltage Level of 13.8kV (low voltage). The bird was found beside the Linha 47.5 Highway in a terra firme
forest, 10km from the nearest urban area and 6.5km from a known Harpy Eagle
nest (Gusmão et al. 2016). Inspection of external and internal morphology
found no evidence of trauma, body lesions, or firearm-associated damage. The claws had a crumbled and flaking surface
texture and appeared blackened, giving an overall appearance typical of burned
tissue (Kagan 2016). Thus, while the
incident was not witnessed, inspection of the body during dissection with the
evidence of the burnt claws, and the positioning of the body near the pole and
below the power transmission network were consistent with the animal having
tried to perch on the high-tension wire, with subsequent death by
electrocution. Post mortem examination
at the Laboratório de Mastozoologia in Centro
de Pesquisa em Limnologia, Biodiversidade e Biotecnologia (CELBE - Limnology, Biodiversity and
Biotechnology Research Center), Mato Grosso State confirmed electrocution. The specimen was later taxidermized and
deposited in the UFMT reference collection (accession number UFMT 4910).
This is the second record of a fatal Harpy Eagle
electrocution in Rondonia. The first reported case was of an adult
electrocuted in 2008, around 105km west Seringueira
municipality on a similar type of power line, and 6km away from a Harpy Eagle
breeding site (Gusmão et al. 2016). According to Urios
et al. (2017), juvenile Harpy Eagles are known to disperse more than 35km from
the natal nest.
There are two other records of Harpy Eagle interaction
with power lines in Brazil. One was an
adult female that was rescued and rehabilitated in the wild after a collision
with a low voltage electricity distribution line in a rural area of Senador José Porfírio
municipality, Para state (Aguiar-Silva et al. 2014). The other was a juvenile born in captivity
and released as a part of a reintroduction program, that died in Panama after
contact with power lines (Watson et al. 2016).
These data compiled from different reports indicate
that power transmission networks are potentially a threat to adult and
dispersing juvenile Harpy Eagles (Urios et al. 2017;
Mojica et al. 2018). Juvenile eagles in
general were electrocuted at approximately twice the rate of subadults or
adults (Mojica et al. 2018). Harpy
Eagles are at particular risk in human-modified landscapes, as habitat
discontinuity may force juveniles to cross deforested areas to pair up, and
establish feeding territories and reproductive sites. Due to the loss of tall trees in forest
fragments (Nascimento & Laurence 2006), Harpy Eagles might use the pylons
of power line systems as perches (Rettig 1978).
The impact of habitat loss on electrocution of raptors
has been noted in other sites, affecting species that include the Black-chested
Buzzard Eagle Geranoaetus melanoleucus (Ibarra & DeLucca
2015), Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus, Golden
Eagle Aquila chrysaetos, Bonelli’s
Eagle Aquila fasciata, Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo
bubo (Hernández-Matías
et al. 2015, Pérez-Garcia et al. 2017) and Crowned Solitary Eagle Buteogallus coronatus (Galmes et al. 2017).
A number of mitigation measures such as retrofitting
(Fox & Wynn 2010; Chevallier et al. 2015; Dwyer
et al. 2019) have been implemented successfully in Europe and elsewhere (Bevanger 1994; Janss & Ferrer
2001; Tintó et al. 2010). These practices could be followed in Brazil
and included in action plans (Plano de Ação Nacional
para Conservação das Aves da Amazônia, Brasil 2014b). In
addition, future research should focus on impacts on juvenile raptors, since
they seem to be disproportionately involved in collisions with power lines
(Harness & Wilson 2001; Sergio et al. 2004; Tabolka
2014).
For
figure & image - - click here
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