PSEG Long Island Donates $10K To Protect Osprey

EAST END, NY — The sweet song of osprey returning to their nests has become a surefire symbol of springtime on Long Island. And now, PSEG Long Island has donated $10,000 to the Group for the East End to further the nonprofit’s environmental conservation efforts, including monitoring and protecting the burgeoning osprey population.

The donation is the latest step in a four-year partnership between PSEG Long Island and Group for the East End that involves sharing osprey nesting data to address poles and other equipment to keep the raptors from building nests where they might be harmed and cause outages, both groups said.

"PSEG Long Island is proud to partner with Group for the East End in protecting the osprey, because good environmental stewardship is part of being strongly involved in the community, and also because protecting these birds from high-voltage equipment improves reliability for our customers," said Dave Lyons, PSEG Long Island’s interim president and chief operating officer. "We are excited to see what we will do together in the future."

On Long Island, the osprey population was nearly extinct in the 1970s — there were probably fewer than 100 pairs from the area all the way up to Boston. Today, there are nearly 500 active nests here on the East End alone, said Bob DeLuca, president of Group for the East End. "It’s been in our interest to try to protect those birds as they come back."

He added: "PSEG Long Island has been very instrumental in our ability to track and monitor the osprey, and I think it’s also been helpful for PSEG Long Island to know where the osprey can get into trouble and to protect them by putting in deterrents."

He thanked PSEG Long Island for its continued investment in osprey conservation across Long Island.

Ospreys build their nests on the tallest structure near a body of water, experts said.

To monitor its utility poles for osprey nests, PSEG Long Island partners with the Group for the East End, a nonprofit organization that has advocated for the protection and preservation of nature on the East End since 1972.

Volunteers with the nonprofit conduct their own surveys of the area and share osprey data with the company, which maintains a team dedicated to mitigating risks and relocating nests safely and in accordance with all regulations protecting the wildlife, PSEG said.

According to a report issued by Group for the East End earlier this year, osprey breeding activity on the East End has grown by 200 percent in the past eight years, with 199 active nests in 2014 growing to 477 in the summer of 2022.

To that end, PSEG Long Island has installed dozens of new osprey nesting platforms to deter the returning birds from nesting on electrical equipment, which puts both the raptors and the electrical system in danger. Maintaining the nesting platforms also helps PSEG Long Island maintain strong electric service reliability.

PSEG Long Island has also installed 24-hour webcams at two of these nesting platforms, in Oyster Bay and Patchogue. Late last month, crews cleared debris and garbage from these platforms to make them safe for the osprey as they return to breed.

For more information about osprey and to view live webcam feed of the nests, click here.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Long Island’s osprey population decreased and became endangered. The effort to build safe nesting sites on or near waterways has contributed to the rise in the population of osprey, PSEG added.