DTEK launched "Storks' Track" with GPS routes for 10 birds
Storks are now "online" too: DTEK shows their journey from Ukraine to Africa
Ukrainians can now follow, in almost real-time, the large migration of white storks from Ukraine to Africa. DTEK launched a separate website “Stork Track” with an interactive map that displays the routes of 10 young birds fitted with GPS trackers. Data about their movements are meant to update once every 2 hours, although delays are possible in some countries due to weak mobile coverage.
The environmental project itself was presented by DTEK as early as 31 July 2026, and now a public tracker is fully operational for everyone interested. This summer GPS transmitters were fitted to 10 young white storks in the Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The birds set off to winter in Africa for the first time in their lives, and their journey became material for scientific observation. Among the storks that can be tracked on the interactive map are Lasunchyk, Inzhyr and Shykydym. For each bird, a user can open the route separately, view the last known point and trace the path already covered.
According to DTEK’s message of 10 September 2026, coordinates are updated approximately once every 2 hours. At the same time, the GPS transmitter itself only sends accumulated data when it has access to a mobile network. Because of this, the map can sometimes lag behind the bird’s actual location. The company noted that this is the situation at the moment. Some storks last transmitted coordinates from Egypt, but ornithologists assume the birds may already have continued on to Sudan, and new coordinates simply have not yet arrived due to connection problems.
“Stork Track” was created not only as an interesting online map. The obtained GPS data are to be used by Ukrainian ornithologists to study actual migration routes, flight speed, locations of prolonged stops, and areas for resting and wintering. Scientists will also be able to analyze how weather, climatic conditions, human activity and infrastructure affect bird movements. This will allow more precise identification of areas where migratory birds face the greatest risks.
For energy specialists these data have practical significance, since migration routes partially intersect power lines and other energy facilities. Tracker information will, in the long term, help identify dangerous sections, install special protective devices there, and take birds’ needs into account during construction and modernization of networks. This became especially relevant during the large-scale reconstruction of the energy system of Ukraine, which Russia systematically destroys with missile and drone strikes. DTEK explains that infrastructure restoration must consider not only the resilience of the energy system but also the impact of new facilities on the environment.
The project continues DTEK’s long-standing program to protect white storks. Energy specialists together with ornithologists have for more than 10 years been moving dangerous nests from power poles to special platforms and installing devices to protect birds on power lines. According to the company, more than 900 special platforms have been installed in total, which each year help protect about 3,600 white storks.
Just in 2026 DTEK Grids installed another 112 new platforms. During monitoring, 298 nests were checked, and 263 of them, or 88%, were found occupied. The company estimates that since the start of the environmental initiative in 2013, these measures have helped nearly 25,000 storks take to the wing. Now GPS monitoring has been added to the physical protection of nests. The organizers expect that after accumulating a sufficient amount of information, scientists will be able to map the actual routes of 10 storks, identify key stopping places and prepare recommendations for further protection of the birds.
You can follow the journey directly on DTEK’s official website: Stork Track
