On-board video recording unravels bird behavior and mortality produced by high-speed trains.

Large high-speed railway (HSR) networks are planned for the near future to accomplish increased transport demand with low energy consumption. However, high-speed trains produce unknown avian mortality due to birds using the railway and being unable to avoid approaching trains. Safety and logistic difficulties have precluded until now mortality estimation in railways through carcass removal, but information technologies can overcome such problems. We present the results obtained with an experimental on-board system to record bird-train collisions composed by a frontal recording camera, a GPS navigation system and a data storage unit. An observer standing in the cabin behind the driver controlled the system and filled out a form with data of collisions and bird observations in front of the train. Photographs of the train front taken before and after each journey were used to improve the record of killed birds. Trains running the 321.7 km line between Madrid and Albacete (Spain) at speeds up to 250-300 km/h were equipped with the system during 66 journeys along a year, totaling approximately 14,700 km of effective recording. The review of videos produced 1,090 bird observations, 29.4% of them corresponding to birds crossing the infrastructure under the catenary and thus facing collision risk. Recordings also showed that 37.7% bird crossings were of animals resting on some element of the infrastructure moments before the train arrival, and that the flight initiation distance of birds (mean ± SD) was between 60±33 m (passerines) and 136±49 m (raptors). Palabras clave: Bird, Mortality

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García de la Morena E.L Malo J.E. Hervás I. Mata C. González S. Morales R. y Herranz J. On-board video recording unravels bird behavior and mortality produced by high-speed trains. Frontiers, 2017. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2017.00117

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Retrieved: 05 Nov 2025 22:08:13
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Resource type Text
Date of creation 2025-05-23
Date of last revision 2025-05-23
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Metadata identifier e03f64e8-6c12-543a-bb0a-7717f5d47a7b
Metadata language Spanish
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ISO 19115 topic category biota
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Name of the dataset creator García de la Morena, E.L, Malo, J.E., Hervás, I., Mata, C., González, S., Morales, R. y Herranz, J.
Name of the dataset editor Frontiers
Other identifier DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2017.00117
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