THREATS IN THE AIRSPACE FOR THE ANDEAN CONDOR (Vultur gryphus): THE CONFLICTS WITH CURRENT AND FUTURE HUMAN INFRASTRUCTURE

REBOLO NATALIA; LAMBERTUCCI SERGIO A

Puerto Iguazú

Congreso; Ornithological Congress of the Americas; 2017

RAO. FOA, CBO

The increasing use of the airspace by humans is causing a growing conflict with the flyingwildlife. For example, buildings, electric towers and wind turbines represent a constantchallenge for birds due to the risk of collision and electrocution. Our aim is to analyze ifthe use of the airspace by the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) overlaps with current orprojected aerial infrastructure. For this, we compared the condors flight patterns withthe location and height of towers, electric lines and wind turbines in North-WesternPatagonia. In this area the collision of condors with aerial infrastructure has beenobserved. We used the information of three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude and altitude) of 44 individuals marked with satellite transmitters. We overlappedcondors data with a geographic information system including information on anthropicuse of airspace. We found an overlap in the use of the land with the electricalinfrastructures, as well as two wind farms that are being built inside condors homerange. We also found that condors fly most of the time between 5 and 150 meters aboveground level (magl), particularly up to 50 magl. These heights strongly overlap with thoseof the medium (15m) and high (55m) voltage transmission towers and wind turbines(160m). Thus, we show an integrated preliminary analysis of how some anthropicstructures may represent a high potential risk of direct collision with flying fauna in anarea that is still wild but with large potential for population growth and consequentlyincreasing airspace disturbances.