IBIS PROTECTION PROGRAM 2002-10

A FAO/DGCS ibis protection program, in operation in the Palmyra desert since the year of the discovery (2002), involved the traditional indigenous people (i.e. Bedouins pastoralists) and Palmyra hunters (Bowden et al. 2002, Serra et al. 2003 b) - receiving international acknowledgements at the 2004 Bangkok IUCN World Conservation Congress and from Dana Declaration Standing Commitee.

It was an intensive protection program against hunting and human disturbance, successfully in operation during period 2002-2004, resulting in a very high breeding performance of the colony - actually, higher than figures recorded at the wild colonies in Morocco. Fourteen chicks successfully fledged during this 3-year period.

Despite experience and lessons learned during 2002-04, a different and much weaker kind of protection program was put in place during period 2005-10, under BirdLife Middle East/RSPB assistance. Far less resources and expertise was made it available to Syrian authorities during this second project. It was mainly based on supporting the local competent authority with incentives for local guards and rangers - with no real monitoring and checking whether this financial inputs would really translate into on-the-ground outputs.

BLME protection program, differently from FAO/DGCS program, did not envisage provision of international scientific and technical experted assistance which had already proven to be crucial during FAO/DGCS program . In fact, it was only in 2006, and partly in 2007, that “veteran” ibis expert G. Serra was allowed to resume field work - only as a volunteer and under a personal initiative. These were the only 2 years when chicks have fledged (for a total of ten), under BLME management.

In 2005 and 2008, protection program was implemented without any scientific assistance nor coordination on the ground: these were the years when fatal breeding failures occurred for the first time. In both years, predictable and avoidable raven depredation occurred at ibis nests.

Due to the successful protection efforts of years 2002-04 and 2006-07, the natural recruitment of the colony - not recorded in years 2002-03 - revitalized starting from 2004. Out of a total of 24 chicks successfully fledged during 2002-2007, since 2004 a total of 5 sub-adults have returned to the colony (2004-07). Three of them successfully recruited into the colony, partially compensating the 20% annual mortality of adults (Serra and Peske, 2006 b, Serra et al. 2009).

Nonetheless, the number of pairs gradually shrinked from 3 in 2002 to 2 in 2004, and finally 1 in 2010... (see Time Running Out).

Problem was that differently from the Moroccan ibises, which are living in resident colonies, the Syrian ibis survivors are migratory: a behavior that makes them unique globally, but also very vulnerable from a conservation point of view.

The protection program at breeding grounds, even when intensive and successfull as during period 2002-04, appeared to be not sufficient: the fact is that the creature should have been protected also in the rest of its unknown range (for 6 months a year they live outside Syria). The only way to discover the rest of the distribution range of this species was to trap and tag with a satellite transmitter one or more birds

In parallel, we had to record 2 consecutive breeding failures in Palmyra (2009 and 2010) due to largely unknown causes: we can only hypothesize that inbreeding and social disruption (only 1 pair attempted breeding in 2010) could be involved. At this stage the colony seemed to have reached the point of no-return...