Now that ProRail, the agency that operates the Netherlands tracks and stations is making headway in its war with badgers who undermine tracks, it’s facing off against the storks who use the poles that carry current for trains as nesting places.
The agency is making some headway in relocating the tunneling badgers, but is worried by the storks, also a protected series, who make their nests high on the poles. ProRail officials say that the nests can damage the electrical lines or passing trains as pieces, or whole nests, fall. The nests can weigh up to hundreds of kilos as the birds add to them year after year.
ProRail says the situation is also dangerous for the birds, who can be electrocuted, or, more often are hit by trains while in the area of the nests. Because of their protected status, they must be offered alternate accommodations, which is not, apparently, easy.
According to ProRail’s in-house ecologist, rehousing requires trying to lure the birds to new nesting poles away from the tracks, but there is often little terrain to place them, he said. “If we put up poles too close to the tracks they will simply return to their old nests, and we can’t expect our neighbours to welcome ‘our’ storks.”
Image: Abdency/Wikimedia
