Although we don’t much notice them under normal conditions, windstorms wake us up to their importance. After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans needed 72,000 pole replacements from around the country.
That kind of spike in demand makes pole-growing a complex business. Pole tree plantations, which grow southern yellow pines and Douglas fir, must be thinned and pruned to create trees that are at least 60 feet tall and free of knots.
As smart grids and underground power lines become more prevalent, I wonder: How much longer will we be using traditional wooden poles? Well, don’t expect to see them disappear any time soon. Wooden poles are more affordable, easier to transport and need less energy to manufacture than steel or concrete poles. They’re also non-conductive, which makes them safer for utility workers. And wooden poles store carbon, a small but real contribution to mitigate climate change.
And so many birds use these structures! Swallows, crows, ospreys and mourning doves all roost on poles. In the wide-open spaces of the West, many raptors hang out on the wires for an uninterrupted view of the prey that scuttles below.
But perching on these wires does carry risks. Power lines electrocute tens to hundreds of thousands of birds annually. Many power companies have taken measures to mitigate these dangers, by insulating existing wires and adding fiberglass perch guards on transformer poles.
Electrical poles are so ubiquitous in our landscape that we hardly even see them. But each one started its life as a seeding, providing us with a more connected world.
