Since the start of the breeding season, the birds in the breeding colony of Kuchl, country of Salzburg, had been unusually nervous. The non-breeding birds even stayed elsewhere overnight. On July 13 in the morning, the nervousness within the colony increased enormously, and a chick was missing. A feather found on the ground gave reason to assume that an eagle owl was the cause.
Until now, 17 birds was the largest number of Northern Bald Ibises that were raised by one foster parent team.
Almost five years ago, two critically endangered Northern Bald Ibises, GOJA and JEDI, were shot by an Italian bird hunter in the province of Livorno, just 80 km north of their wintering site.
On the 21st of May, three young birds arrived in their breeding colony in Kuchl near Salzburg, a highlight of the season 2017. Although the three young birds are not yet sexually mature, they made their way to the north in April.
On April 18, 11 additional chicks for hand-raising were taken from nests at Zoo Rosegg. Three further chicks came from the colony at the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Grünau, Upper Austria. Together with the earlier collected chicks, a total of 31 Northern Bald Ibises will be hand-raised this year.
Yesterday, 17 Northern Bald Ibis chicks aged 2 to 8 days were taken from the nests of the Northern Bald Ibis breeding colony of Tierpark Rosegg in Carinthia. After a thorough veterinary check, the chicks were given into the care of the two experienced foster mothers Corinna Esterer and Anne-Gabriela Schmalstieg.
Spring 2017 has arrived, so it´s time to re-start the Newsletters. And there´s quite a good reason to do so. The day before yesterday, on March 22, the first wild bird within this season arrived at the breeding site Burghausen in Bavaria.
A successful, but in some ways also a difficult year lies behind us. I´d like to thank everyone for their interest and dedication for the Northern Bald Ibis and the LIFE+ project!
Due to our joint efforts, there´s Reason for Hope, according to the motto of our LIFE+ project. Hope is of great value in these days, and a good and positive motive for the new year 2017! Stay with us!
Best wishes
Johannes Fritz
From November 30 to December 01, a LIFE+ veterinary meeting, organized by the LIFE+ Northern Bald Ibis team and hosted by Zoo Vienna, took place. It was a quite mixed group: 25 people from 4 nations participated. Out of that, 12 were veterinaries, 12 were scientists (and partly also veterinaries) and nine were conservationists (and partly also scientists).
On November 15 2016, the female Northern Bald Ibis LUNA was found in the region of Verona, near Costermano, with heavy injuries caused by gun pellets. It is the fifth case of illegal hunting on this critically endangered species within the migration season 2016.
Within 40 days, three critically endangered Northern Bald Ibises were shot in different Italian regions during their migrating journey. This is one sixth of the birds that were present in Italy at the time.
KATO was shot already on September 1 2016, the first day of the hunting season in the Tuscany. One month later, on October 8 2016, the male bird TARA was shot near Thiene, province of Vicenza.
