The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita: history, current status and future perspectives


CHRIST I ANE BÖHM,CHRI S T O PH ER G. R. BOWD E N,PHIL I P J. SEDDON TANER HAT I P O Ğ LU,WIDADE OUBR O U,MOHAMMED E L BEK KAY


MIGUE L A. QUEVEDO,JOHANNE S F RITZ,CAN YENI Y URT,J OS E MANUAL LO PEZ J ORGE FERNAND EZ ORUETA,DIDO N E F RIGERIO and MARKU S UNS Ö L D


Abstract The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita was once widespread throughout the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and central Europe. Habitat destruc- tion, persecution and the impacts of pesticides have led to its disappearance from most of its former range. It disap- peared from central Europe .400 years ago, but has per- sisted as a relict and slowly growing breeding population in Morocco, where c. 700 wild birds of all ages remain. In Algeria, the last confirmed breeding was in 1984;in Turkey the fully wild population disappeared in 1989, but a population remains in semi-wild conditions. In Syria a small population was rediscovered in 2002, only to subse- quently decline to functional extinction. Restoration pro- grammes have been initiated independently in several locations, with over 300 free-flying birds resulting from reintroduction projects in Austria, Germany, Spain and Turkey, to restore both sedentary and fully migratory popu- lations. Maintaining current efforts in Morocco remains a high conservation priority.


CHRISTIANE BÖHM* Alpenzoo Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria CHRISTOPHER G. R. BOWDEN* (Corresponding author,


Keywords Conservation, demography, northern bald ibis, population trends, reintroduction, threats, translocation, waldrapp


Supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605320000198


Introduction T


he northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita is one of the rarest birds. Although recently recategorized on the


orcid.org/0000-0001-


8271-4311) Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, UK. E-mail chris.bowden@rspb.org.uk


PHILIP J. SEDDON* Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand


TANER HATIPOĞLU Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı, Ankara, Turkey


WIDADE OUBROU and MOHAMMED EL BEKKAY Département des Eaux et Forêts, Parc National Souss-Massa, Inezgane, Morocco MIGUEL A. QUEVEDO Zoobotánico Ayto, Jerez, Cádiz, Spain JOHANNES FRITZ† Waldrappteam, Mutters, Austria CAN YENIYURT Doğa Derneği, İzmir, Turkey


JOSE MANUAL LOPEZ Consejería de Medio Ambiente Junta de Andalucía, Cádiz, Spain JORGE FERNANDEZ ORUETA SEO/BirdLife, Madrid, Spain


DIDONE FRIGERIO† Konrad Lorenz Research Centre for Behaviour and Cognition, University of Vienna, Grünau im Almtal, Austria MARKUS UNSÖLD‡ Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Munich, Germany


*Joint first authors †Also at: Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria ‡Also at: Waldrappteam, Mutters, Austria


Received 2 June 2019. Revision requested 15 July 2019. Accepted 6 March 2020. First published online 2 December 2020.


IUCN’s Red List from Critically Endangered to Endan- gered, it has a precariously small wild population lim- ited to a handful of breeding sites, and the main subpopu- lation has only recently recovered slightly (BirdLife, 2018). The northern bald ibis was probably once widespread across the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and 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 pesticides led to its disappearance from most of its former range (Hirsch, 1976, 1979; Collar & Stuart, 1985). It was ex- tirpated from central Europe.400 years ago, but breeding populations persisted in Morocco, Algeria, Turkey and Syria into the 20th century. The only viable wild population is now in Morocco, but there are significant captive zoo pop- ulations, release projects and semi-wild populations. Here we review the species’ current status throughout its former range, and look at conservation prospects, ongoing reintro- ductions and natural recolonizations. The geographical dis- tribution of colonies, projects and sightings (up to and in- cluding 2018), and consolidated figures for all wild, semi- wild, released and captive populations, are summarized in Fig. 1 and Table 1.


Indigenous range and population structure


Based on minormorphological distinctions and preliminary genetic work, two populations (eastern and western) have been identified, but the extent and timing of their separation appears to be minor and recent (Pegoraro et al., 2001;Wirtz et al., 2016, 2017). 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, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 934–946 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000198


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