Threat to the habitat of the Northern Bald Ibis in Morocco recedes

From Morocco, there is encouraging news concerning the what was previously thought to be the world's only known population of Northern Bald Ibises (and see below), whose feeding habitat was threatened by development of a holiday resort by the travel and leisure company Club Mediterranee.

Club Med looks set to shelve the plans for a holiday complex at Tifnit, because of concern about the welfare of one of the world's rarest birds (the Proact campaign played a small but influential role), and concern over the current world economic situation. A delegation from the Bern Convention recently visited the Souss-Massa National Park and it is anticipated that their report will recommend improvements to the status of the Tifnit development land, perhaps through land purchase, and a reinforcement of the Park's status. The birds themselves are continuing to increase, with a recent count of 315 birds in 2002 (up from 220 in 1994), and the number of breeding pairs has almost recovered following the mortality incident in 1996. The species still remains on the Critically Endangered list however.

There is further good new from Syria however (courtesy of World Birdwatch 24/Sept 2002):

Northern Bald Ibis breeding in Syria

As reported in a Stop Press item in the June 2002 issue of World Birdwatch, Northern Bald Ibises Geronticus eremita have been discovered breeding in Syria.

Three incubating pairs and a seventh adult ibis were discovered in an AI Badia (desert steppe) area of central Syria, in April 2002, by a team carrying out wildlife surveys on behalf of the Syrian Government's Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MAAR). The surveys took place through a co-operation programme funded by the Italian Government aimed at developing countries and implemented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Three chicks subsequently fledged successfully, and all the birds had left the breeding site by 8 July.

This is the first evidence of the continued breeding of Northern Bald Ibises in the Middle East since a colony at BireQek, Turkey, became extinct in 1989. Since then there have been sporadic sightings in Saudi Arabia and Eritrea, suggesting that a breeding population existed somewhere in the region, and evidence suggests that hundreds of Northern Bald Ibises probably inhabited the area of the newly discovered colony only a few decades ago.

Survey Team leader, Associate Professional Officer, Wildlife Expert, Gianluca Serra said, "Discovering this bird was like finding the Arabian Phoenix regenerated from the ashes. My Syrian colleagues from MAAR, Ghazy AI-Qairn and Mahmoud Abdallah, were optimistic that Northern Bald Ibises still existed in central Syria because we had received reports of their presence from Bedouin nomads and local hunters, such as Mr Adib Assaed of Palmyra, who was instrumental in locating the birds."

Project staff responded quickly to the important discovery and two recentlytrained eco-tourism guides, Mr Talal Fayad and Mr Ahmed Abdallah, were appointed to watch over the colony 24 hours a day and collect data on the breeding cycle for the following 11 weeks. Joint funding and advice was provided by the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK), who have considerable expertise in the conservation of Northern Bald Ibises in Morocco.