Storks choose mobile phone towers over trees
Findings from a two-year survey of Woollyneck Storks, highlight a puzzling reliance on mobile phone towers despite poor breeding success and frequent disturbances.
New research reveals endangered Asian Woollynecks are nesting exclusively on mobile phone towers in Bangladesh, raising urgent questions about conservation and co-existence in an increasingly built landscape
A Surprising Breeding Strategy
In a behaviour that defies conventional expectations, the critically endangered Asian Woollyneck Stork (Ciconia episcopus) has been observed nesting exclusively on mobile phone towers in western Bangladesh. This revelation, published in Ecology and Evolution by researchers Allama Shibli Sadik and Ashis Kumar Datta, adds to a growing body of evidence that some bird species are adapting to human-modified landscapes in surprising ways.
The study, covering a two-year survey across five districts in the Padma River basin, found three active nests—each built on mobile infrastructure. While storks have been known to nest on artificial structures in other countries, such consistent and exclusive use of mobile towers has not been documented before in Bangladesh. Remarkably, no nests were found in natural tree sites, despite their presumed advantages in terms of predator avoidance and lower human disturbance.
High Risks in a High-Rise Habitat
Despite the height and seeming security of mobile towers, the storks’ nesting success was severely compromised. Two of the three nests observed in 2022 were abandoned following human disturbances and were later predated—one by a Large-billed Crow, the other by a House Crow. Only one nest produced a fledgling.
The study used a combination of camera traps, drone footage, and field observations to monitor the nests. Footage captured striking sequences: parent birds fleeing during welding or other maintenance work, followed soon after by opportunistic crows raiding the nests. In one case, five nearly hatched chicks were lost after prolonged adult absence caused by a midday tower repair operation.
By 2023, tower disturbances appeared to have deterred storks from returning to previously used sites. A nest initiated in June was destroyed midway through construction during another round of maintenance. These outcomes suggest that while mobile towers may offer appealing elevation and visibility, they come with substantial, and often fatal, risks.
Why Towers and Not Trees?
The exclusivity of tower-nesting raises more questions than answers. Other stork species, including conspecific populations of the Asian Woollyneck in India and Nepal, show varied nesting strategies—ranging from trees to electricity pylons. In those regions, use of artificial sites rarely exceeds 13%. So why are Bangladesh’s Woollynecks rejecting trees altogether?
The authors speculate that widespread habitat alteration, lack of large trees in surveyed areas, or even the potential benefits of tower height and structural stability may play roles. However, they caution against assuming this behaviour is adaptive in the long term, particularly given the consistently poor reproductive outcomes linked to human disturbance and nest predation.
A Call for Collaborative Conservation
The authors urge immediate conservation interventions. These include formal partnerships with mobile service providers to schedule maintenance outside the April–July nesting period, and increased awareness among tower crews and local residents about the presence of these protected birds.
Longer-term strategies might involve creating safe artificial nesting platforms in less trafficked areas or supporting agroforestry projects that provide tall, undisturbed trees suitable for nesting. Further research is also needed to explore whether electromagnetic radiation, used extensively by mobile towers, could influence stork reproductive behaviour or success.
In Bangladesh—where the species is considered critically endangered—these actions are likely essential if the local population is to persist.
A Species in Transition
The story of the Asian Woollyneck in Bangladesh encapsulates both the adaptability and fragility of wildlife in the Anthropocene. It illustrates how species can adjust their behaviours to new conditions, but also how these shifts may come at a steep cost.
As landscapes change and natural habitats shrink, understanding such behavioural plasticity becomes crucial—not only for protecting threatened species, but for anticipating where conservation and infrastructure policy must meet. The mobile phone towers may offer visibility, but without protection and foresight, they may also become monuments to lost opportunity.
22 April 2025
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