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No Red Kite Deaths Were Recorded at a Retrofitted 48-Pylon Power Line Used by Reintroduced Birds

Red kite flying against a blue sky
Conservation: Reintroductions & translocations, Management

A high-risk power line retrofitted to reduce bird electrocution was used repeatedly by reintroduced red kites (Milvus milvus) without any mortality being recorded in association with the corrected structures. The result comes from an analysis of the reintroduction programme in Jaén, southern Spain, where red kites had disappeared as a breeding species in the early 2000s.

Twenty-one reintroduced kites used the retrofitted line

Between 2021 and 2025, the programme released 186 red kites, 181 of which were fitted with GPS transmitters. At the same time, 48 pylons on a power line previously associated with high raptor mortality were fitted with anti-electrocution measures. Twenty-one of the reintroduced birds later used the mitigated power-line area, generating 802 GPS locations there. No deaths were recorded in association with those corrected structures.

Electrocution remained part of the wider mortality picture

Researchers recorded 80 deaths among monitored red kites and could assign a cause to 72 of them. Natural causes accounted for 54.2% of the classified deaths, dominated by predation with 34 cases. Human-related causes made up 45.8%, including nine cases of poisoning and eight of electrocution. The absence of recorded deaths on the mitigated line therefore contrasts with electrocution remaining a documented cause elsewhere in the monitored population.

Breeding recovery occurred alongside reintroduction and mitigation

The reintroduction programme also coincided with the return of breeding red kites to Jaén. The number of breeding pairs rose from three in 2023 to six in 2024, 13 in 2025 and 22 in 2026.

The authors conclude that reintroduction and targeted infrastructure mitigation can work together in human-modified landscapes. The study does not show that correcting 48 pylons alone caused the population increase, but it provides direct GPS-based evidence that reintroduced birds used the treated power-line area without a recorded fatality there, while electrocution remained part of the mortality picture elsewhere.

Sources and image credit

  1. Iglesias-Lebrija, J. J., Garrido, J. R., Hermoso, R., Chamorro, A., Hernández, R., Álvarez, E., De La Fuente, S., Marco, M., Pastor, N., Martínez, E., Moraleda-Fernández, V., Izquierdo, P., & Galdón, A. (2026). Positive effect of power line mitigation on reintroduced red kite (Milvus milvus) population in southern Spain. Raptor Journal.Primary open-access research article published 11 September 2026. The accessible primary-source abstract was checked. Between 2021 and 2025, 186 Red Kites were released in Jaén and 181 carried GPS transmitters. Across 80 recorded deaths, 72 had an assigned cause; predation was the largest natural cause, while poisoning and electrocution were the leading reported anthropogenic causes. Twenty-one reintroduced kites used the area of a mitigated 48-pylon power line, producing 802 GPS fixes, with no mortality recorded in association with those structures. The paper reports breeding recovery from three pairs in 2023 to 22 in 2026.

Image: Charles J. Sharp — red kite photographed in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom; representative image, not a bird from the Jaén study. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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