TIME RUNNING OUT... (2008-10)

A N. Bald Ibis International Action Plan was released in 2006 - but as for most of these kind of documents, it remained just a piece of paper. Also an eastern N. Bald Ibis Program was “established” by BirdLife International in 2008. Unfortunately, no sufficient fund raising nor concrete activities on the ground were pursued or associated to these documents.

From the surveys undertaken in Ethiopia wintering grounds, it appeared clear that in order to save the ibis eastern population we had to focus on the breeding grounds in Syria and on the migratory route along western Arabia peninsula.

Known threats at breeding grounds in Syria had been reduced through the years BUT were still dramatically present, especially the human disturbance during incubation, raven depredation and breeding habitat degradation and/or destruction. Unfortunately, birds heavily depend on intensive and specialized protection in order to breed well (see Standard Ibis Protection Protocol, Serra 2009).

 

In fact, experience showed that it really takes nothing for a Bedouin shepherd, an inexperienced Govt. guard or an unaware and unaccompanied ecotourist to scare an incubating ibis and make its whole clutch die. Also, as we noticed through the years, the small size of ibis colony makes them completely unable to counter-act the depredation of nestlings by ravens.

Years after years, we have collected good evidence about behavioral ecology showing that the ibis feeding habitats are heavily degraded at their breeding grounds in Palmyra. Another sad reality is that oil companies have been given concessions within the Ibis Protected Area as early as 2007 - and they have been producing damages on ibis feeding habitats creating tracks and drilling wells. Also building of infrastructures on ibis feeding habitats by unaware authorities, attracted by the idea of ecotourism, is a current sad reality - and indeed the ultimate relevant threat!

In front of the dire and proven need for intensive protection of breeding ibises - including the need for scientific coordination and international technical assistance (see Standard Ibis Protection Protocol, Serra 2009) - no technical assistance was provided to Syrian authorities in years 2008-10 (with the exception of 2009, thanks to an IUCN project).

In 2008 the colony failed the breeding surely due to insufficient protection and consequent raven depredation - the same as it had happened in 2005. Overall, this breeding failure had been a predictable and predicted event based on past experience (Serra in prepar.).

On the other hand, the mortality rate of immature during the 2-3 years they spent outside breeding grounds is around 80% - which is far too high for the colony to be viable. Due to this reason, together with the disastrous fact that the colony started failing the breeding due to unknown causes in 2009 and 2010, the ibis colony size have been keeping shrinking - reaching the lowest point in 2010, when only 1 breeding pair was still surviving.

First effects of inbreeding could be involved in breeding failures of 2009 and 2010 - together with the inexorable social disruption of the colony (N. Bald Ibis is a highly gregarious species), which has reached the lowest number of only one pair in 2010.