Migratory Pattern of Rare Bewick Swans Tracked with GPS Devices

In an effort to curb the killing of thousands of bird each year from offshore wind farms, scientists have fitted ten Bewick’s swans with GPS tracking equipment in order to map out their yearly migration from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) center along the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border of the UK to their Arctic Russian breeding grounds.

The data collected from the migration study will alert windfarm developers where they should place the enormous turbines in order to reduce their risks of affecting the migration routes of the swans.

Bewick swans are the smallest and rarest of UK’s swans. Since 1995, more than one third of the species has disappeared, dropping their number from 29,000 to 18,000 total population by 2010.

Part of the hope is that with the data from this project, which is being conducted by WWT on behalf of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, that wind farmers can be convinced to at least turn their turbines off during the migratory season and steer clear of migratory paths for these beautiful birds when developing future wind farm locations.

Researchers feel confident farmers will be willing to do their part to help. They just need the data to show the exact patterns so that all parties can explore logical, ethical alternatives.

They’re attaching the GPS tracking devices to the swans through an approach called cannon netting. This practice takes the safety of the swans into account and simply place cannon nets in the fields where the birds feed and fire the nets over the birds to hold them in place until they can get there to attach the “jackets” which contain the GPS devices (after checking the birds to ensure they’re in good health).

The weight of the collars is similar to that of humans carrying around mobile phones so no harm is expected to come of the birds from wearing these jackets.

Two of the birds that have been jacketed have already left to begin their migrations. Katy Smith, assistant warden at WWT believes that the Bewick’s swans are a great creature for this type of project and is excited to see this glimpse into their lives and migratory patterns.

Of course, the ultimate goal of the project is to ensure that the beautiful Bewick’s swan is able to live a long and healthy diet and to promote the population of the species.

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