Northern bald ibis

Northern bald ibis, Souss-Massa National Park, Morocco
Northern bald ibis foraging in cereal crop

The northern bald ibis has undergone a spectacular and continuous decline over the centuries and is now listed as critically endangered.

The northern bald ibis disappeared from the European Alps over 400 years ago, but most alarmingly in recent decades it has become extinct in Turkey, in 1989, as well as most of its former range in Morocco and Algeria. The only remaining known wild breeding populations persist at two coastal sites near Agadir in Morocco, the majority of which are in the Souss-Massa National Park which was officially designated in 1991.

The project started in 1994 with the aim of collecting field data on the northern bald ibis and its use of habitat to enable the formulation of well justified recommendations for conservation action to increase or maintain the remaining population of this species. In the Souss-Massa National Park, the project was timed to contribute to the formulation of a Management Plan for the park, developing a bald ibis Management Plan in conjunction with park staff working with the Moroccan Department of Eaux et Foret.

The project includes a training component for park staff to ensure that recommendations are well understood by on-site staff who will be able and motivated to carry them out.

Research activities have focused on the detailed monitoring of breeding, and on the feeding ecology, defining the most important areas throughout the annual cycle and between years. These research and monitoring data are needed for a series of years before interventions can be planned with confidence. Although populations of the species declined and disappeared altogether from all other breeding sites by 1989, the Souss-Massa population has remained relatively stable for over 20 years.

The International Advisory Group for Northern Bald Ibis (IAGNBI) has been established since 1999 to coordinate actions for the species, and has a good website, www.iagnbi.org, that provides background information on the species and about the various initiatives working on it. The RSPB's International Species Recovery Officer, Chris Bowden, currently chairs this committee.

Satellite tracking map of northern bald ibis

A small population of northern bald ibis were discovered in Syria in 2002. The migration route was unknown until three birds were tracked in June 2006. More...

Related websites

International Advisory Group for the Northern Bald Ibis