The Return of the Pharaohs Bird - Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita)

[Stephen]

The Return of the Pharaohs Bird

The Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) is a globally threatened, rare bird which favours arid, sand locations normally associated with nearby fresh running water. There are only around four hundred and fifty free-flying such birds, on the whole planet to which Birdlife International declares this species on the critically endangered list. There are however larger numbers to be found in Zoos and private collections with most in Europe.

Northern Bald Ibis and other Ibis species were revered as holy birds and symbols of brilliance and splendour in Ancient Egypt and as such were given an adored status and prime protection.  As the Pharaohs and the great Egyptian civilisation disappeared, slowly the Northern Bald Ibis lost social recognition and sanctuary and was hunted more and more for food.

The last know breeding population on the Iberian peninsula was thought to have been around the 14thC. Monks in Germany and Austria described in their ancient books and manuscripts what life was like and how Northern Bald Ibis were ‘farmed’ like chickens and eaten just like we do to chickens to this day.
Europe and Middle Eastern countries too had small colonies dotted from southern Germany and Italy, through the Balkans to Turkey and the Middle East.
Most of these groups have disappeared and the largest known natural colony can be found near Tamri in Morocco. This colony is protected and closely monitored by park rangers, local Police and local and international biologists. Some years ago another population was discovered in Syria.

Over the centuries this odd-looking bird that forages mainly for insects, and small reptiles on arid agricultural land became easy prey for man and numbers crashed. In more recent times, loss of habitat to man, pesticides and pollution amplified their decline. The recently discovered group in Syria recently came under the spotlight where it was discovered that the increasing availability and indiscriminate use of rat poison, particularly around open rubbish tips in African countries has halved the know (naturally) migrating Syrian group. Less birds return to Syria each spring putting this colony under further threat.

Here in Spain a re-introduction programme, Proyecto Eremita is running on the military (Armada) land close to the port of Barbate, on the Costa de La Luz. Last year a pair successfully bred, for the first time entirely on their own at a location chosen by the birds, and successfully raised one chick. This must be a breeding absence of something close to five-hundred years in Europe! All of the three eggs hatched but two of the larger chicks killed the smaller one (a brutal but regular occurrence in the wild). A short time later one other chick was killed and eaten by a two meter long Montpellier´s Snake. All the action was watched on the security cameras in the offices of Barbate’s Marina. There was even once incident where a young Italian tourist climbed down the cliff-face to video the nestlings after forcing the parent off with his irresponsible behaviour. Unknown to him and relayed back by a cleverly camouflaged, solar-powered video camera! The story goes that our young Italian film-maker was made to stand in the corner in an office at the Guardia Civil Barracks for a few hours and wear a silly hat (rather like the old style black, shiny Guardia one I suspect - they always got a laugh……. I don’t think that a prosecution was deemed necessary and anyway his video camera seems to have been mysteriously lost somewhere en route! Weeping he left Barbate and returned to Italy, replacing video camera with something more substantial to shoot with and vowing with a blood-curdling scream atop Mount Vesuvius, to shoot birds indiscriminately in order to restore his lost honour as a young hunter.

Sorry, I digress.

A similar project to re-introduce the birds in central Europe is currently running in Austria and a semi-wild group also exists in Turkey.  The Austrian project did however undertake a migration programme with microlight aircraft to Tuscany with limited success. Hit by torrential wind and rain the aircraft was forced abandon the journey and to land. The birds were later transported by road. Some of the birds were lost or killed on the return journey later the following spring, which reinforces what we already know about how precarious and dangerous migration is – especially for first year birds. Geographically, this wasn’t a huge distance to be covered by the birds, but nevertheless travelling in ‘uncharted’ territory can have a dramatic effect on the survivability of all migrants.

The Spanish programme is managed and run by biologists at Jerez Zoo and obtains assistance from other bodies. Here, the zoo has a large breeding collection of these rare birds and DNA analysis shows that they have six different genetic blood-lines in different birds, from a known total of eight blood lines still surviving. There may be other small colonies yet to be discovered in places like Somalia but the present political situation there for example, makes exploration and searching for new groups impossible.

The birds at Barbate do not know how to migrate although several adult birds have since taken up residence around some of the Algarve golf courses. A single ringed bird from the Spanish programme was also seen in the middle Atlas mountains in 2005.  A few birds have been seen recently roosting with Cattle Egrets at La Barca de Vejer in Cadiz province and the nearby golf course at Montenmedio is also a favoured feeding area for the Ibis. I do not wish to accuse any leisure organization of indiscriminate use of insecticides on their fairways but know of other golf courses where Mole Crickets and other burrowing insects are particulary targeted, especially during winter hibernation.

Most of the Spanish birds are fitted with a radio transmitter and with luck tracking the birds can be undertaken. The difficulty for any operator with this type of equipment is that the bird must be in line of sight to the operator. The terrain along the Strait of Gibraltar and inland makes finding any of the birds a real challenge for the biologists.
In the last few weeks five of the Ibis from the Barbate project have been killed in various ways, by natural predation by Eagle Owls and Bonelli’s Eagles, road kill and presumed poisoning with the use of strong insecticides, tests on the dead birds are still awaited.
Stephen

[john]

A grim final paragraph - does this put the whole project into question?

John

[Stephen]

Not at all John... The number of birds that have been released so far has been close to sixty. Even with natural predation which the group accounts for an the unexpected, including pretty well known use of some pretty lethal insecticides that are still in use in the UK as well as SW Spain, the project is going forward at a slow but positive pace. It may take some time to establish any sort of natural breeding colony on the Barbate cliffs (El Acantilado) but realistically there must be both the will and the funding for a long-term project. Under the present financial crisis that is gripping the whole of the Western World, the will is there but perhaps the cash will dry up.
Bottom line - If we think we can achieve this possibility in ten years then this maybe a short sighted view. It has to be long term - without political intervention or pressure from any other interested group.

Stephen

[clive]

http://www.theolivepress.es/2009/01/24/an-albatross-an-eagle-no-thats-an-ibis/

Utterly mind boggling cutting edge reporting

[Peter]

http://www.theolivepress.es/2009/01/24/an-albatross-an-eagle-no-thats-an-ibis/

Utterly mind boggling cutting edge reporting

Quite! What's a Hermit Ibis???

Peter

[TonyB]

I suspect that Wikipedia is to blame 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldrapp
Right down to the same photo.

[clive]

Flocks of them breeding all over the place as well... Amazing

[Peter]

Flocks of them breeding all over the place as well... Amazing

Yep a truly amazing piece of journalism. With very little effort could have produced an accurate as well as more informative article. No justice at all to the true situation and positively misleading.

 

[TonyB]

What's that old journalist's chestnut?  Never let the truth get in the way of a good story?

[mike in Jerez]

The Olive Press report is taken almost verbatim from the report in the Andalucía section of El País newspaper published earlier this month. I didn`t find much wrong with it. The Latin name for the Northern bald Ibis includes the word [eremita, which means hermit, (from the Greek eremitis = living in the desert). So perhaps that`s why some refer to it as the Hermit Ibis.....

[clive]

I have no issues with the name used, hermit Ibis is fine by me... What I am questioning is the use of words such as "nesting... Many people would interpret this word instead as "breeding"

So have the birds observed in the Algarve been nesting?

One interesting observation I heard about is that the fledged chick from last year flies amongst the main flock and can be distinguished from the others by its different flight technique.... All the other birds were captive bred and in the aviaries they must have developed different muscle structure... fascinating!

I haven't seen this myself but would be interested in hearing anyone has noticed this?

[mike in Jerez]

Hi Clive, the original article in El País (by one Pedro Espinosa on 11th Jan)didn`t use the word "nesting", it just stated where the bird had been seen.( e.g.The surviving chick with its parents at Montenmedio) The unnamed writer of the Oliva Press article must have got carried away when transcripting or ....got Lost in Translation!

[mike in Jerez]

Further to John`s request about where to see this bird, you all may be interested to know that the project is being monitored by Jerez Zoo, which released the birds in the first place. My contact at the Montecastillo hotel in Jerez, where there is a golf course, has just handed me a leaflet which Jerez Zoo has distributed to golf courses and actually requests golfers to report sightings of the bird either by phone or email and, if possible, state the plastic ring number of the spotted bird/bird spotted...
The email contact addresses are:

veterinarios.zoo
at
aytojerez.es

and

proyectoeremita
at
andaluciajunta.es

By the way, I am not a golfer, nor have I seen the Ibis Eremita yet!

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