Efforts underway to prevent stork deaths

BALIKESİR - Anatolia News Agency

Ten percent of stork chicks are dying in Turkey due to electric shocks. DHA photo

At least 10 percent of stork chicks are dying in Turkey due to electric shocks caused by power distribution units, according to the deputy director of Ege University’s Natural History Application and Research Center, Professor Mehmet Sıkı. He said that efforts to prevent this were underway.

Sıkı said storks had a significant place in Turkish culture and were friends to farmers as they ate harmful species such as rats and grasshoppers. He added that storks migrated to Turkey in spring and most of them made their nests in power distribution units, posing a big risk to both the storks and their babies.

“At least 10 percent of stork chicks are dying because of electricity shocks and explosions of power distribution units. When the chicks begin to flap, they hit the wires and die. Fires occur in the places where storks make their nests. We are trying to prevent such things. A protocol signed between the Ministry of Forestry and Ege University aims to prevent stork deaths and also to track them,” Sıkı said.

Within the scope of a project launched on April 1 that will last for three years, storks incubating in İzmir, Manisa, Aydın, Muğla, Eskişehir, Kütahya, Afyonkarahisar, Uşak and Denizli provinces would be monitored and in order to prevent electric shocks, nests made of stainless iron would be placed one to one and a half meters above the power distribution units, Sıkı said.

“We will also put rings on the legs of stork chicks in a wider area. In this way we will be able to observe their migration path as well as breeding and feeding grounds. We will also see if the chicks return to the place when they hatch,” Sıkı added.