Electrocution of Purple Martins
Electrocution of Purple Martins
During the latter part of May and the first part of June, 1933, hundreds of Purple Martins (Progne subis subis) gathered every night upon the electric wires near Bingham’s pond, an irrigation reservoir about one-fifth of a mile in length, six miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona. On the evening of May 31, I estimated the number at 1600. One span of bare 2300 volt wires is rather long and in the center the separation can hardly be more than eight or ten inches. Below this point I found a dead male Purple Martin and wing feathers of several more.
I was puzzled to account for these deaths until, on the morning of June 3, the matter was solved. A female martin was found hanging head downward, its claws grasping the wire tightly. Evidently when the wires were crowded with birds, the wind or the movement of the birds as they sometimes left in large groups, was sufficient to swing the wires dangerously close together. The moment two birds on different wires touched they would, of course, be electrocuted. Stray cats probably accounted for the feathers on the ground.
A. H. Anderson
Tucson, Arizona, June 5, 1938
