Power lines are one of the most dangerous man-made structures for birds, whether they're flying or trying to perch on top.

DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - Power lines are one of the most dangerous man-made structures for birds, whether they're flying or trying to perch on top.

"100 years ago, somebody said I have an idea for moving power across the country," Jacques Nuzzo, the Program Director at the Illinois Raptor Center, said. "'We just put up these poles and run the wires. This is a great idea, right?' But nobody thought back then that this is the greatest raptor perch ever made by man."

Ameren and the center have been working together for years to end bird electrocutions altogether.

Ameren was one of the first to implement an Avian Protection Program about 15 years ago.

Kyle Maxwell, an Electric Operations Superintendent with Ameren, said, "We don't want birds to be injured or killed or electrocuted on our lines, and every time we have an incident like that happen with a bird, it typically causes an outage."

Over the last decade-plus, the power company has changed standards for new poles, retrofitted old ones and placed shielding covers over lines that protect birds from the electric current when they go to grab on.

"An eagle's wingspan will go up to almost 60 inches, so what we've done is we've spread out our conductors so that the eagle can land on a conductor and reach another conductor, causing an electrocution," Maxwell told WAND News.

The changes are easy and are working.

"You look back to 2023-24 which is year 13-14, we've reduced those outages by 41% from when we started this program," Maxwell said.

Nuzzo added, "We've actually not seen this as a problem in the last five or six years. We just haven't seen birds come in with this problem."

Nuzzo credits Ameren's proactive approach to the dip in bird electrocutions.

"They're the one organization that said, 'Do you know where all the bald eagle nests are?' I don't, but let's figure out where they're all at. And they started going at them proactively," Nuzzo said.

Ameren also has protective covers for animals that like to climb up the poles.

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