Destruction Of Osprey Nest By CL&P Questioned

This was written by Christine Cummings, the president of A Place Called Hope, licensed wildlife rehabilitaters who care for injured, orphaned, sick or non-releasable birds of prey.

Osprey Nuisance Nesting on Utility Poles/Power Lines and the Method of removal US Fish and Wildlife Condones.

On Tuesday, May 14th two active Osprey nests in Guilford were destroyed by CL&P despite the fact that the adult birds were incubating eggs.

US Fish and Wildlife had granted CL&P permission to remove the nests since they could result in power outages and/or fire. The nests were destroyed during the night without a Fish and Wildlife Service person or Wildlife Rehabilitator overseeing the removal. This is an ongoing issue in the Northeast and CT Utility Companies need to update their methods of addressing this very serious annual occurrence by taking appropriate preventative mitigation steps, and by not responding after-the-fact.

Knocking down active nests is not necessary since there are ways this can be dealt with that aren’t so invasive and destructive. One way would be to remove nesting materials after offspring have fledged and maintain the lines during the early Spring season, as the Osprey returns. Waiting until the Adults are already on eggs and disrupting the natural cycle is pointless since the Osprey will just rebuild and the problem never goes away. Offering alternative nearby platforms is the obvious solution and if nests are already active, rubber sleeves to cover live wires will keep things safe until the eggs have hatched and the offspring can be safely relocated to the awaiting nearby man made platform. If US Fish and Wildlife can give permission to power companies to remove an active nest, then they should also insist that proper preventative mitigation measures are taken - this means that an alternative nesting platform is built and made available to the displaced Osprey when their nests are removed. 

Why aren’t the Osprey, a Federally Protected Bird, being protected?

Why is US Fish and Wildlife permitting power companies to remove nuisance nest sites on utility poles and power lines without a USFW officer on site to monitor the steps taken? Why was no one there to enforce the permit which states that the power company was to check in the nest first to a) remove the eggs or b) remove the nestlings and hand them over to a licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator? Instead, the nests were simply destroyed, knocked down to the ground, eggs and all. It was stated by Meagan Racey of US Fish and WIldlife “that a Wildlife Rehabilitator would normally be on site to take the eggs and incubate them”, but under Federal Law it is illegal to incubate wild eggs and it is more likely that rehabilitators would be instructed to bury the eggs.

Either way, no rehabilitator was involved. Seven individuals witnessed the destruction from start to finish, three of which happened to be licensed Wildlife Rehabilitators who were never asked to be there but were there anyway to document the activity that so desperately needs to be changed.