KEPCO strives to drive out birds meant to bring good luck

Magpies, which East Asians believe bring good luck and fortune, are posing a headache for Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), by gnawing at power lines and building nests on utility poles.

The South Korean government is now looking for harsher measures to drive them out, including spraying bird repellant and installing anti-bird spikes on power facilities. They have been capturing them and removing their nests built on power poles, but that hasn't been enough.

Power facility damage caused by birds reached 17 billion won ($13.3 million) in 4,048 cases in 2022, according to document from the Ministry of Environment obtained by Park Dae-soo, a lawmaker of the ruling People Power Party on Tuesday.

Magpies were the most mischievous fowl, accounting for 77% of KEPCO’s total property damage caused by birds, which has reached 13.1 billion won over the past three years. Each case caused more than 10 million won in damage on average.

Last January, a magpie dropped a wet twig on a power pole, disrupting a power transformer, which led to the power outage of 780 households near Seoul National University.

Nests built on utility poles are another cause of power outages, when twigs and wires used to make their homes contact electric wires.

Magpies tend to build nests on big trees. Due to the deforestation of cities, however, they have started nesting on power poles.

Despite the power cut damage blamed on magpies, factories and stores cannot be compensated. KEPCO is not liable for damage resulting from power outages caused by short circuits and other circumstances beyond its control, under the terms of its electricity supply.

Meanwhile, KEPCO is not idly sitting by. It has been pulling down magpies’ nests from utility poles since the spring.

It also tasked an association for damage prevention from wild animals with killing and capturing magpies, which the environment ministry classified as wild animals in 2000.

Write to Kwang-Sik Lee and Yong-Hee Kwak at bumeran@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.