Client: California Army National Guard (CAANG)
Location: San Luis Obispo County
Timeframe: 2014–2015
Project Manager: Sandra Menzel

Project Highlights:

• Albion’s competent ornithologists supported CAANG’s commitment to environmental stewardship and compliance with federal and state regulations by providing recommendations for minimizing the impacts of power poles and power lines on birds and thereby also improving the safety and efficiency of Camp San Luis Obispo’s infrastructure.

• Our wildlife biologists quantified bird activity around all power poles and power lines throughout the installation, delineated Avian Concentration Areas, and assessed the relative risk of power structures within these areas.

• We developed an Avian Protection Plan that presents strategies for reducing the risk of electrocution or collision of birds with power lines, resulting not only in improving wildlife protection but also limiting potentially costly damage to the power supply infrastructure.

In October 2014, CAANG contracted with Albion to conduct a power structure survey and risk assessment, and develop an Avian Protection Plan for Camp San Luis Obispo Army National Guard Training Site. The Army regards reducing avian electrocutions and collisions with power structures as an important conservation goal, which can also provide economic benefits through the prevention of power outages. Albion’s wildlife biologists assessed all power structures on the base, searched for avian fatalities along the power lines, and delineated Avian Concentration Areas based on point-count surveys and landscape features. We assessed the relative risk of power structures within these Avian Concentration Areas and included the results in our Avian Protection Plan which was completed in 2015. The plan is intended to reduce the risk of electrocution or collision of birds with power lines, resulting in improved bird protection while also limiting potentially costly damage to the power supply infrastructure. Our project manager attended an Avian Power Line Interaction Committee (APLIC) Workshop and based the plan on the committee’s guidelines outlined in: Suggested Practices for Avian Protection on Power Lines: the State of the Art in 2006. More information about APLIC is available at  http://www.aplic.org/.