Why Don T Birds Get Electrocuted On Power Lines
Olivia Luz
![Why Birds Don T Get Electrocuted When They Sit On High Voltage Wires Or Power Cables Electr High Voltage Electrical Engineering Power Cable](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cf/e3/af/cfe3afc14aae0cbc988550d5b02f0598.jpg)
Birds don t get shocked when they sit on electrical wires because they are not good conductors of electricity.
Small birds are usually fine but occasionally larger ones such as crows may touch both pylon and cable and are then electrocuted. There is no potential difference. The possible reasons are discussed in this article. Secondly the bird offers greater resistance to the electricity passing through it than the power cable so the electricity will travel through the power cable.
So the current will bypass their bodies as their is a short path with very less resistance in case of copper wire. An electric shock is caused by a flow of current through a body. Our bird is safe for the moment anyway. That s why electricity companies put plenty of space between cables.
Their cells and tissues do not offer electrons an easier route than the copper wire they re already traveling along. Fortunately this is a rare occurrence but there is another danger posed by power lines. When a bird is perched on a single wire its two feet are at the same electrical potential so the electrons in the wires have no motivation to travel through the bird s body. Some birds primarily swans are killed when they fly into the cables.
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If the bird sitting at this one potential was to also make contact with another object of different potential that bird would be completing a path to ground causing severe electric shock or electrocution. If it extends its wings and touches another power line at a different voltage though it will be electrocuted. They re not good conductors birds are able to sit on electrical power lines because the electrical current essentially ignores the bird s presence and continues to travel through the wire instead of through the bird s body. The reason that birds don t get electrocuted whilst they sit on power cables is that both the birds feet are at the same potential so the electricity doesn t flow through them.
No moving electrons means no electric current. A bird avoids being electrocuted because it is sitting on a single wire and is at one point of contact and consequently one electrical potential.
Source : pinterest.com