Cape Vultures are on ‘collision course’ with wind farms 

On 23 November last year, one of VulPro’s rehabilitated Cape vultures was struck by a wind farm turbine in the Eastern Cape. It was the first time a tracked vulture had been hit.

“This particular bird was being monitored with a tracking device and we noted his movements had stopped and then landed up in urban Cape Town,” explained Kerri Wolter, the founder of VulPro, a non-profit conservation organisation dedicated to the preservation of vultures. “Zooming into the map, one could clearly see the wind farm turbine and where exactly the bird was struck by the blade.”

What concerned her was the “complete lack of transparency” from the Nxuba wind farm. “Nobody had made any contact with us and we had to dig around and investigate who we could contact to get information as well as the tracking device back …

“All in all, it became clear that nobody was going to inform us of the wind turbine collision and it was hoped that nobody would pick up the signal of the device … What was sad is this was a rehab bird, released near Queenstown by Kate Webster [who works with VulPro in the Eastern Cape], with our other captive-bred and rehabilitated individuals and it was doing extremely well.”

The vulnerable Cape Vulture occurs mainly in South Africa, with small populations in Lesotho, Botswana and Mozambique. Only about 4 500 breeding pairs remain.

Adhering to requirements

Caroline Nhlane, the Southern Africa head of communications for Enel Green Power, said its operational sites, like the Nxuba Wind Farm, engage the services of a bird and bat monitoring specialist as part of ongoing operational and maintenance activities.

“This specialist undertakes various activities, including, but not limited to, monitoring bird and bat activity on the site, managing carcass searching campaigns, identification of relevant bird and bat species, reporting on findings and informing us of relevant impacts.

“The specialist notified us about the fatality of a vulture on 3 December 2022. Our on-site team located the deceased vulture; collected, sealed, marked and stored it according to the operating procedure in line with our authorised EMPr (Environmental Management Programme).”

On December 7, the consulting specialist advised that a tag had been found on the vulture and it was identified as belonging to VulPro and “was in fact already en route ‘to Kerri at VulPro’”, she said.

As part of the operating procedures in its EMPr, “we report on similar and such activities and share the same” with BirdLife South Africa and the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment (DFFE) quarterly. A vulture food search programme has been implemented as “part of the mitigation measures in place, while continuing to adhere to EMPr requirements”.

‘Collision course’

VulPro’s 2022 annual report detailed how two tracked Cape Vultures had collided with wind turbines in the Eastern Cape. “This is an alarming situation for us as these two birds were being tracked and we can only guess how many more vultures and other birds have fallen victim to these structures.”

It is working closely with environmental consultancy companies where new structures are going up “to advise as to best practice for the implementation of these wind farms. However, with vultures ranging as widely as they do, it is extremely difficult to declare a wind farm far enough from vulture movement that it does not pose a threat”.

According to Webster, Cape Vultures are on a “collision course” with wind energy facilities in the Eastern Cape, which is home to the Cookhouse and Stormberg Renewable Energy Development Zones (REDZ).

“Wind energy needs wind to be able to generate power, so they are built where the wind is ‘better’. We all know wind will always blow well on escarpments, however, Cape Vultures rely on wind thermals to allow them to fly as they are generally not agile flyers [with a] wingspan of 6m from tip to tip and need thermals to lift their bodies so they use the escarpments to effectively do this.”

As they are not agile flyers, Cape Vultures cannot change direction or twist and turn as smaller birds do and are more exposed to colliding with the blades, which are turning at over 300km/h at the tip. “The risk is huge as … they do not fly like looking out for obstacles to avoid. They are searching for food and suitable perching areas.”

High risk

“When it comes to Cape Vultures and wind energy, we can confidently say that they are at a high risk of being struck by turbine blades,” according to Samantha Ralston-Paton, the birds and renewable energy project manager at BirdLife South Africa.

There are already a large number of wind farms with environmental approval “uncomfortably close” to vulture roosts and colonies. “Some of those that are already operational are doing a good job at monitoring, mitigating and reporting on their impacts. Others are not.”

There are many alternative, less risky places that have good wind resources. “We should focus on developing those areas first. Hopefully by the time we need to look at developing high risk sites, we will have secured 1) watertight commitments to monitoring and mitigate impacts during the operational phase; 2) mitigation that have been proved to be effective and affordable and 3) government resources for active oversight and enforcement at operational wind farms.”

Fragile populations

The draft multi-species biodiversity management plan (BMP) for vultures in South Africa cites the major threats to Cape Vultures as unintentional poisoning, electrocution on or collision with energy infrastructure and intentional poisoning for African traditional medicine.

The rapid development of wind energy in southern Africa represents an additional threat to already fragile populations of African vultures. “The distribution of the vulnerable Cape Vulture in particular, overlaps considerably with wind energy development areas in South Africa, creating conflicts that can hinder both vulture conservation and sustainable energy development.”

Cape Vultures are known to collide with wind turbines. “Indeed, the last five years have shown concerning numbers of mortalities on wind farms, particularly in the Eastern Cape. There have been 24 Cape and three White-Backed Vulture fatalities at wind farms reported to date (this includes a few electrocutions).”

The current fatality rate of Cape Vultures at the country’s wind energy facilities is 0.008 birds per turbine per year, but “these figures are not an accurate reflection of the actual number of vulture fatalities. Not all wind farms are monitoring, reporting and/or mitigating fatalities”, it said.

When REDZ are taken into account, a significant overlap exists between the Cape Vulture range and both operational and proposed facilities. “Subsequently, there is pressing concern around the potential cumulative impact of wind energy facilities on the Cape Vulture population within these areas of overlap.”

This is compounded by the recent gazetting and fast-tracking of REDZ across the country, “which is sure to increase the level of collision risk for Cape Vultures and other collision-prone species”.

Mitigation measures

Santosh Sookgrim, senior technical adviser the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA), said it actively partners with BirdLife South Africa to discuss the roll out of mitigation measures via the association membership.

“There are a number of mitigation measures being employed by the industry such as Shut Down On Demand protocols with active and observer-led activation measures. Curtailment is being explored during high migration periods. Several wind farms actively participate in conservation and breeding programmes.”

The challenges involve balancing the commercial aspects and profitability of the plant with the mitigation and conservation efforts. “Currently, one of the key challenges is the opposition to the expansion of the blade patterning programme by the South African Civil Aviation Authority,” he said.

SAWEA’s position statement on the wind energy impact on birds in South Africa notes how energy from fossil fuel sources has been shown to be about 35 times more dangerous to birds on a per GWh basis than wind and nuclear plants. Bird fatalities at wind farms are also “many orders of magnitude lower than those from other leading anthropogenic [human-caused] sources of avian mortality”.

SAWEA recognises the potential for wind farms to have a greater impact on larger, rarer bird species than other energy sources. “The guidelines that wind farm developers in South Africa apply are aimed specifically at minimising such fatalities and thus are helping to make the impact of wind farms on birds … even less than other energy sources,” it said.

Avifaunal monitoring

Webster said the Cookhouse REDZ and Stormberg REDZ, are “both ideally situated on escarpments, both are vulture killing zones [and] both have roosts well within 50km of their developments”.

In response, DFFE spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa said environmental authorisations issued for the construction and operation of wind energy facilities are informed by a 12-month avifaunal monitoring programme. The outcome informs the decision to grant or refuse the environmental authorisation.

If an authorisation is granted, specific conditions “dictate that construction and post-construction monitoring must be undertaken by the holder of the authorisation and be reported to the Directorate responsible for compliance monitoring.” If there are significant changes to the impacts, during the construction and operational phase, the holder must adapt mitigation measures to reduce the impacts.

New protocol

Mbelengwa said to fortify existing assessment and monitoring measures, the DFFE would soon be introducing the Cape Vulture protocol, “which provides a criteria for the specialist assessment and minimum report content requirements for determining impacts on Cape Vultures associated with the development of onshore wind energy generation facilities, which require environmental authorisation”.

The assessment and reporting requirements of this protocol are associated with a collision risk potential identified by the national web-based environmental screening tool for Cape vultures. The protocol will apply within and outside of the REDZs.

It has been facilitated by a Cape Vulture risk map produced by the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, which identified areas of very high, high, medium and low sensitivity for collision of Cape Vultures with wind turbines, based on bird tracking data, terrain, breeding, feeding and behaviour modelling. “These allowed for the determination of specific requirements for monitoring and risk assessment.”

Site sensitivity verification for Cape Vultures includes a 12-month period of vantage point monitoring at various identified intervals to determine the level of Cape Vulture activity over the site. Where the verification has confirmed the site as being of a high or very high collision risk to Cape Vultures, an additional 12-month monitoring regime must be implemented, which specifically considers the ability to mitigate the impacts, he said.

“Where impacts are not able to be mitigated, the site will not be suitable for the development of a wind energy facility … The protocol identifies that an approval granted is subject to adaptive management, which could include curtailment and shut down measures should there be unacceptable impacts on Cape Vultures post construction.”