This is a great story all about the best in humankind. The northern bald ibis was hunted to extinction in Europe in the Middle Ages. The bird habitually migrates south from northern Europe, as I understand it. A project concerning the conservation of this bird species involved conservationists, biologists, and volunteers, raising a group of northern bald ibises from chicks. When you do this the humans are imprinted on the animal as their mother. Armed with that mentality, humans can achieve an awful lot and, in this instance, they have taught the birds to migrate south.
They’ve achieved this by piloting microlight aircraft which are followed by the now adult ibises. In the past a group of ibises have been migrated south from Austria to Italy. They’ve been doing it for the past 16 years when surrogate mothers have been taking small flocks of ibises across the Alps to Tuscany every year. The birds then return north without human intervention.
Johannes Fritz, a biologist and pilot said: “We already have a population of about 250 birds in the wild and about half have been raised in the wild. They have learnt these routes from their elders.”
Apparently, the route over the Alps proved too difficult for most of the ibises because of climate change. Migration usually occurs in late September but the higher temperatures in central Europe delayed their departure from Lake Constance. So, when they left to migrate south the temperatures above the Alps was too cold for them. Only five of the 60 ibises managed to make the journey. But one bird, named Ingrid, selected an alternative route and veered west and arrived on her own in Malaga.
The biologists adopted this route and they now a second group of ibises start their journey from Germany and follow their surrogate mums to southern Spain where they spend the winter and then they will fly back to Germany next summer or spring as I understand it. The journey is 2200 km which as you can imagine is a challenge. The Times reports that the journey took 42 days. They used two microlight aircraft.
However, they are unsure whether the German group of ibises will resume their migration back in spring. They believe that they will.
It is hoped that the surrogate mothers, volunteers and pilots will teach the ibises this migration route and that once they’ve learnt it will pass their knowledge onto their offspring.
Postscript: there is some confusion in reporting in The Times article about the ibises starting from Germany or Austria. I believe that there are two groups as stated. The first group has been taking the journey from Austria to Tuscany for quite a long time and the second, new group, has just started the journey from southern Germany to southern Spain. I suspect that they wanted to take the birds from southern Germany to Tuscany but as mentioned the route became untenable because it was too cold going over the alps.
