Birds bred in captivity led on
three-week migration south from Germany by human ‘foster parents’
Denise Hruby in Überlingen,
Germany
Fri 20 Jul
2018 16.00 BSTLast modified on Mon 23 Jul 2018 08.19 BST
Leaning out of an ultralight
aircraft, Corinna Esterer turns toward a flock of peculiar black birds soaring
just a few metres away. “Come, come ibis,” she yells through her megaphone.
Drawn by Esterer’s voice, the birds dart to the aircraft, and follow it to a
field overlooking Lake Constance in southern Germany. Once on
the ground, the ibis flock to Esterer. To the birds, the young woman is their
parent.
For more than 300 years, the
northern bald ibis has been extinct in the wild in central Europe,
with small populations surviving only in zoos. But recently, it has celebrated
a slow but steady comeback thanks to human foster parents who have shown the
birds how to migrate south by leading the way in ultralight aircraft.
This year is the fifth time the
team has taken young birds that hatched in captivity on a three-week migration
across the Alps to their wintering grounds in Tuscany.
“It really is pioneering, the
first [example] of its kind in which we have reintroduced a bird species with
the help of human-led migration,” said Johannes Fritz, the head of the project.
Fritz has spent most of his career trying to bring the ibis back. “Granted,
they are not very beautiful, but [they are] charismatic,” he said.
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