A pair of ospreys are safely building their summer home on a FortisBC pole in Kelowna.
The ospreys built a nest and laid three eggs on one of the company’s poles on Benvoulin Road south of KLO Road.
FortisBC aims to provide a safe place for the birds to call home and raise their families. Ospreys are large birds of prey that primarily hunt fish and nest on tall structures near bodies of water. To prevent ospreys from nesting on active power poles, FortisBC is installing special nesting platforms to protect the species.
“We are always committed to proactively protecting the wildlife around our electricity infrastructure and, with Ospreys, we want to ensure they have safe areas to nest in their natural habitats,” said Amy Duncan, land biologist for sustainability and the environment at FortisBC .
“We know that ospreys often mate for life, and established pairs typically return to the same area to build their nests. So it is important that we continue these conservation efforts every year.”
FortisBC’s Osprey Management Program has existed since 2005 and helps protect these birds by installing nesting platforms. These platforms are built taller than the surrounding electricity infrastructure to encourage the ospreys to nest in these safer locations.
If an osprey succeeds in building a nest on a live power pole, FortisBC will safely remove the nest and move it to one of these suitable nesting platforms. To date, the company has installed more than 70 of these platforms throughout the southern interior.
Watch FortisBC’s livestream of the osprey and babies.
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