Management of storks and quality of Energy Service: Stork project

White stork (Ciconia ciconia L.) population has increased dramatically over the past decade in wet areas, particularly in the Mondego River Basin, located between Coimbra and Figueira da Foz cities, Portugal]. As consequence, demand for nesting and roosting in electric distribution equipment, e. g. poles, has accordingly increased resulting in frequent bird fatalities from electrocution, and often outages of power supply, as consequence of activation of automatic safety relay devices. Therefore, equipment damages and economical losses to industrial customers and bird deaths persuaded the main operator, EDP Distribuição, and Energy Service Regulatory Authority (ERSE), to implement management programs of storks´ activities in the vicinity of electric equipment, e.g. poles and transformers.