Wings in the wind: jackal buzzards and the hidden cost of green energy

“Common doesn’t mean safe. Especially not when your entire global range is restricted to one country or region.” — Merlyn Nkomo

By all appearances, the Jackal Buzzard is abundant. With its rufous and black colouring and piercing cry, it is a familiar sentinel over Southern Africa’s open landscapes. But this common raptor, a species found nowhere else on Earth, is up against an uncommon foe. As South Africa strides toward a greener future, embracing wind energy as a climate solution, the skies where Jackal Buzzards soar are becoming increasingly dangerous. The blades of progress are spinning fast, and cutting deep, and the green highway is increasingly dotted with roadkill.

“They’re common,” says raptor biologist Merlyn Nkomo, “but they’re dying quietly.”

Jackal Buzzards are among the most frequently killed raptor at South Africa’s wind energy facilities, according to a report released earlier this year by Birdlife South Africa. A bird of the open plains and ridges, they ride the same strong, predictable air currents that developers seek to harness. The wind map overlays their prime range and habitats. As the country accelerates its renewable energy goals, hundreds of Jackal Buzzards could die in turbine collisions each year. But because the species isn’t rare, the alarm bells are not ringing loud enough.

Nkomo is raising the alarm. She will make her case at the annual Oppenheimer Research Conference in Midrand in October, where she will present a paper titled “Navigating the Green Dilemma: Stakeholder-Driven Research Priorities to Curb Biodiversity Loss in South Africa’s Green Energy Transition”.

The buzzard in the blind spot

Jackal Buzzards are endemic to Southern Africa with their core population in South Africa. Yet their conservation status, “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List, means they are largely ignored in environmental impact assessments and mitigation protocols. The mitigation lists are at the discretion of wind farms as guided by their biodiversity management plans and what is feasible considering cost of shutdowns and insurance for the machinery/engineering.
“Conservation tends to focus on rare or charismatic species,” says Nkomo. “But common doesn’t mean safe. Especially not when your entire global range is restricted to one country or region.”

And the data is grim. Nkomo’s research, part of her postgraduate work in ornithology, is a population viability analysis. Using available data on turbine collision rates and estimated Jackal Buzzard population sizes, she’s modelling what the future might hold.

“In the worst-case scenario, where there is high development and low mitigation, the species could face extinction in less than a century, or qualify for uplisting to Critically Endangered in three generations” she says. “And that’s using numbers we know are conservative.”

With only about >1400 turbines currently operating in South Africa and more than 35 GW of wind energy potential on the table, the risk of rapid, expansion is very real.

“The development pipeline is huge. If we don’t scale up our mitigation strategies alongside it, we’ll be wiping out species before we even understand them.”

The blade and the body count

Wind turbines kill birds, there’s almost no way around it. Some die because they simply don’t see the fast-moving blades, a phenomenon known as “vision smear.” Buzzards and eagles rely on peripheral vision, which can fail them at turbine heights. “They hunt while flying, and they’re looking down, not forward. They don’t expect a blade to be in their path,” says Nkomo.
Mating displays, landscape features, flight dynamics, poor weather, all increase the risk. And collisions aren’t the only problem. Roads, pylons, and human activity that accompany wind farms also create secondary hazards, like vehicle strikes, electrocutions and displacement due to habitat disruption.

But solutions exist. In Norway, painting one of a turbine’s blades black has reduced collisions by up to 70%. In South Africa, a handful of experimental trials have also been proposed, and there has been a successful implementation of an automated bird protection system with rapid shutdown capability on wind farms between the Western Cape and Northern Cape.

“Painting blades sounds simple, but there are regulatory hurdles, aviation concerns, costs, downtime,” says Nkomo. “Everyone agrees it could help. But the costs will be too high for already operational wind farms.”

More advanced mitigation uses AI systems, which track birds and automatically shut down turbines when priority species approach. But these technologies are expensive, and South Africa’s wind farms often opt for a low-tech solution: trained people.

“At sites like Excelsior Wind Energy Facility, local people are trained to spot and identify birds. When they see a priority species, they radio in and shut down the turbines.”

It’s an elegant, human-powered system that creates jobs while protecting wildlife. But unfortunately: Jackal Buzzards aren’t yet on the target species for shut down list.

Turbines get shut down for Black Harriers, Martial Eagles, Cape Vultures and Verreaux’s Eagles. Mitigation lists are at the discretion of windfarms as guided by their biodiversity management plans and what is feasible considering cost of shutdowns and insurance for the machinery.

Her goal is to change that. Her modelling work aims to provide the evidence regulators need to include Jackal Buzzards in these protocols.

The people equation

In a country with deep inequalities and a youth unemployment crisis, conservation jobs matter. Wind farms that employ local youth in shutdown-on-demand programmes aren’t just saving birds, they’re building capacity.

“You’re giving people skills, income,” Nkomo says. “And you’re embedding conservation in local communities. Wind farms have the potential to employ local people and upskill them in green jobs, especially in remote rural and farming economies where work is seasonal and unemployment is high,” says Nkomo. She notes that wind farms have a social responsibility, providing bursaries and clinics amongst other things.

But these gains don’t offset the broader ecological cost of poorly regulated development. “This is a systemic issue,” she says. “.. We’re not studying the common species, because we think they’ll always be there.”

It’s not just about saving a species. It’s about changing the way we think about conservation itself, about who does it, who benefits, and what gets saved.

An unexpected calling

Nkomo’s own path into conservation started unexpectedly. “I birded for the first time in my second year of university,” she recalls. “We were in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, and I thought I’d be counting lions or elephants. Instead, I was assigned birds, and I fell in love with birding and discovered my passion for them.”

But as the game drive continued, something shifted. “I started recognising the birds, really seeing them. And I realised I was good at it.” Her voice warms at the memory. “It was like discovering a hidden wing in a mansion I thought I knew. Suddenly, the whole world opened up.”

Birds became her gateway into ecology. “They made nature make sense. They made science feel beautiful.”

But from there her journey wasn’t easy. “In high school, when I said I wanted to go into conservation, people laughed,” she says. “‘That’s a white people thing,’ they told me. And that’s still the problem. Even now, people say I’m doing something exotic, as if it doesn’t belong to me.”

That tension, between belonging and exclusion, has shaped both her science and her advocacy. “Conservation has been framed as new, as Western. But African people have always been stewards of nature. That knowledge, that connection, it’s in our histories, our identities.”
“I realised conservation didn’t reflect me. So I decided to change that.”

She started a youth birding club. She co-authored a paper highlighting the racism and inequity embedded in global conservation. And she stayed.

“I’ve had experiences that could’ve pushed me out. But I stayed. Because this is my continent. Conserving it is my heritage and duty.”

A future worth fighting for

Her affection for the Jackal Buzzard in particular is obvious.

“They’re pretty,” she says. “And I say this honestly as somebody who’s worked with several different raptors. Jackal Buzzards are really handsome and can be charismatic. Also, they’re ours, they’re endemic. You cannot find them anywhere else in the world.

For Nkomo, the Jackal Buzzard is both symbol and sentinel. “They scream when you get near their nest. They’re visible and vocal, and yet somehow they’ve fallen through the cracks.”

“They’re fiery birds,” she says. “Fierce. Loyal. They’re not rare, but they are irreplaceable.” And, she repeats, “they’re ours”.

“We don’t have to choose between climate solutions and biodiversity,” concludes Nkomo, “but we do have to care.”

Because some losses aren’t loud. They happen quietly, a bird at a time. Until one day, the skies fall silent.

Merlyn Nkomo will present her paper, “Navigating the Green Dilemma: Stakeholder-Driven Research Priorities to Curb Biodiversity Loss in South Africa’s Green Energy Transition”, to the 14th Oppenheimer Research Conference which takes place in Midrand from 15th- 17th October.

Yves Vanderhaeghen writes for Jive Media Africa, science communication partner of Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation.