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The Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus Eremita: History, Current Status and Future Perspectives

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The Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus Eremita: History, Current Status and Future Perspectives The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita: history, current status and future perspectives C HRISTIANE B ÖHM,CHRISTOPHER G. R. BOWDEN,PHILIP J. SEDDON T ANER H ATIPOĞ LU,WIDADE O UBROU,MOHAMMED E L B EKKAY M IGUEL A. QUEVEDO,JOHANNES F RITZ,CAN Y ENIYURT,JOSE M ANUAL L OPEZ J ORGE F ERNANDEZ O RUETA,DIDONE F RIGERIO and M ARKUS U NSÖLD Abstract The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita was Keywords Conservation, demography, northern bald ibis, once widespread throughout the Middle East, northern population trends, reintroduction, threats, translocation, Africa, and southern and central Europe. Habitat destruc- waldrapp tion, persecution and the impacts of pesticides have led to Supplementary material for this article is available at its disappearance from most of its former range. It disap- doi.org/./S peared from central Europe . years ago, but has per- sisted as a relict and slowly growing breeding population in Morocco, where c. wild birds of all ages remain. In Algeria, the last confirmed breeding was in ;in Introduction Turkey the fully wild population disappeared in , but a population remains in semi-wild conditions. In Syria a he northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita is one of the small population was rediscovered in , only to subse- Trarest birds. Although recently recategorized on the quently decline to functional extinction. Restoration pro- IUCN’s Red List from Critically Endangered to Endan- grammes have been initiated independently in several gered, it has a precariously small wild population lim- locations, with over free-flying birds resulting from ited to a handful of breeding sites, and the main subpopu- reintroduction projects in Austria, Germany, Spain and lation has only recently recovered slightly (BirdLife, ). Turkey, to restore both sedentary and fully migratory popu- The northern bald ibis was probably once widespread lations. Maintaining current efforts in Morocco remains a across the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and high conservation priority. central Europe, with wintering populations as far south as Mauritania and Senegal, and from the Arabian Peninsula and African Red Sea coast to Eritrea and Ethiopia. Habitat destruction, persecution and the impacts of agricultural CHRISTIANE BÖHM* Alpenzoo Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria pesticides led to its disappearance from most of its former CHRISTOPHER G. R. BOWDEN* (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0001- range (Hirsch, , ; Collar & Stuart, ). It was ex- 8271-4311) Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, . Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, UK. E-mail [email protected] tirpated from central Europe years ago, but breeding populations persisted in Morocco, Algeria, Turkey and Syria PHILIP J. SEDDON* Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand into the th century. The only viable wild population is TANER HATIPOĞLU Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı, Ankara, Turkey now in Morocco, but there are significant captive zoo pop- ulations, release projects and semi-wild populations. Here WIDADE OUBROU and MOHAMMED EL BEKKAY Département des Eaux et Forêts, Parc National Souss-Massa, Inezgane, Morocco we review the species’ current status throughout its former MIGUEL A. QUEVEDO Zoobotánico Ayto, Jerez, Cádiz, Spain range, and look at conservation prospects, ongoing reintro- ductions and natural recolonizations. The geographical dis- JOHANNES FRITZ† Waldrappteam, Mutters, Austria tribution of colonies, projects and sightings (up to and in- CAN YENIYURT Doğa Derneği, İzmir, Turkey cluding ), and consolidated figures for all wild, semi- JOSE MANUAL LOPEZ Consejería de Medio Ambiente Junta de Andalucía, Cádiz, Spain wild, released and captive populations, are summarized in Fig. and Table . JORGE FERNANDEZ ORUETA SEO/BirdLife, Madrid, Spain DIDONE FRIGERIO† Konrad Lorenz Research Centre for Behaviour and Cognition, University of Vienna, Grünau im Almtal, Austria Indigenous range and population structure MARKUS UNSÖLD‡ Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Munich, Germany *Joint first authors Based on minor morphological distinctions and preliminary †Also at: Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of genetic work, two populations (eastern and western) have Vienna, Vienna, Austria ‡Also at: Waldrappteam, Mutters, Austria been identified, but the extent and timing of their separation Received June . Revision requested July . appears to be minor and recent (Pegoraro et al., ; Wirtz Accepted March . et al., , ). All fully captive populations in Europe, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, Downloadeddistribution, from https://www.cambridge.org/core and reproduction in any medium,. IP address: provided 170.106.33.19 the original work, onis 23 properly Sep 2021 cited. at 12:19:20, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, Page 1 of 13 © The Author(s),. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605320000198 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000198 2 C. Böhm et al. FIG. 1 Former and recent distribution, projects sites and zoo colonies of the northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita. Data from Collar & Stuart (), Welch & Welch () and Böhm et al. (). Japan and North America, and those used in European re- The remaining global wild population now occupies a lease projects, derive from western origin birds (Böhm, , small coastal strip in southern Morocco in the region of ), whereas the Turkish semi-wild birds are of local, east- Agadir, where it breeds on sea cliffs in two main areas and ern origin. Thus, although more work is needed, the two is resident year-round. In the Moroccan authorities populations can be regarded as distinct management units. designated the Parc National de Souss-Massa, a , ha coastal protected area specifically delimited to protect the nesting and feeding areas of the northern bald ibis south Western subpopulations of Agadir. The other main breeding and feeding area is a coastal strip km north of Agadir in the region of ’ Morocco Tamri, a no-hunting area designated as a Site d Interêt Bio- logique et Ecologique, but with no formal protection status. Historically, breeding colonies occurred in the High and By a total population of c. birds was breeding in Middle Atlas Mountains and some Atlantic coastal areas three subcolonies within the Parc National de Souss- north of the present colonies. The number of populations Massa, and in one colony at Tamri (Bowden, ). There declined from sites in to in and only three is some movement between these sites, which are c. in , as a result of habitat modification, human distur- km apart (Bowden et al., ; El Bekkay et al., ). bance, hunting and pesticide use (Collar & Stuart, ). A project, started in as a collaboration between the Thevenot et al. () documented a higher number of Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Sociedad historical colonies because they treated some dispersed Española de Ornitología, and later Groupe de Recherche colonies as separate entities. Historical records suggest pour la Protection des Oiseaux au Maroc, working with that the now extinct inland populations were migratory, Parc National de Souss-Massa, aims to increase the nor- wintering further south in Morocco and as far away as thern bald ibis population in Souss-Massa. Local fishers Mauritania and Mali (Bowden, ). were hired and trained as wardens, and a range of local Oryx, Page 2 of 13 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000198 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 23 Sep 2021 at 12:19:20, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605320000198 Northern bald ibis 3 TABLE 1 Summary of the status of the estimated global adult northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita population in . Totals for captive populations include non-breeding birds, but totals for semi-captive and free-flying populations are recent counts of actively breeding adult birds only. Semi-captive means only seasonally free-flying and not self-sustaining. Fully Relict Reintroduced Population/country captive Semi-captive free-flying free-flying Total Eastern population Syria 0 0 21 02 Turkey 0 263 0 0 263 Western population Algeria 0 0 0 0 0 Morocco 0 0 708 0 708 Spain 0 0 0 72 72 Germany (Burghausen) 0 0 0 15 15 Austria (Kuchl) 0 0 0 21 21 Austria (Grünau) 26 0 0 26 Austria (Rosegg) 36 0 0 36 European Endangered Species Programme for the 1,745 1,745 northern bald ibis (92 zoos) Extra-limital population North America 140 140 Japan 110 110 Non-studbook population (unknown parentage) Europe c. 800 c. 800 Total c. 2,350 263 710 108 c. 3,950 Syria figure is uncertain because of access and security issues. rural development projects were implemented in the area increase. By , there was a total of individuals, with to develop grass-root interest in the species’ conservation. pairs raising fledglings. In , pairs bred and Managing and maintaining the local wardening at both there was a post-breeding total population of birds, in- Parc National de Souss-Massa and Tamri has been the cluding recently fledged juveniles. The total population at main intervention, and has been consolidated recently the end of the breeding season was . individuals, with Moroccan government support. with a breeding adult population of pairs (Oubrou & El By the population had declined to pairs following Bekkay, ; Table ). These trends appear to be linked to the unexplained death of birds in (Bowden, ; measures taken by Parc National de Souss-Massa to engage Touti et al., ), but by it had recovered to breed- local communities and develop wardening capacity. Intensive ing pairs (Oubrou & El Bekkay, ) and has continued to monitoring of breeding and feeding sites and the provision of TABLE 2 Breeding productivity of the northern bald ibis in Souss-Massa and Tamri, Morocco.
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