Northern Bald Ibis in Tunisia
Newsletter 03/11/2015
On October 26 we received an email with the information that one of our birds, the juvenile hand-raised male Carlito, was captured by a retired policeman in Tunisia. The location of the bird was on the countryside near the Bou-Hedma-National Park, inland about 300 km from the North Coast.
The communication was difficult but finally we succeeded. Thanks to Rachele Trevisi, who took over the communication in French, we received more and more information including pictures and two videos of Carlito. It became clear that the bird was in a very bad condition. Both metatarsi were broken and it had a large wound on the ventral side. It also became clear that the veterinary conditions were unfortunately not according to the requirements of the bird. So, after consultation with our Veterinary Dr. Scope we finally decided to euthanise the bird.
The circumstances of this journey are still unknown. According to the last GPS position, the bird was near the WWF Oasi Laguna di Orbetello on October 19. Then, for unknown reasons, the GPS tracker stopped to transmit. Therefore we cannot reconstruct the course of this journey of approximately 1000 km, which is very annoying.
We assume that the bird travelled alone and on its own. Maybe it flew out into the open sea due to adverse weather conditions, lost the orientation related to the wintering side and followed an internal vector further south. Clearly, this is a mere speculation. But we definitely assume that the journey was initiated without own intention due to external factors, because it is the first time ever that one of our birds departed from the wintering area further south (except temporary movements down to the region of Rome). It also seems clear that the journey was dysfunctional, because the bird was directly on the way to the Sahara. Furthermore, the cause of the severe injuries is unclear. We asked for an autopsy but we have no results yet.
To conclude with a positive aspect: Crossing the Mediterranean Sea as a juvenile bird and probably as a single individual is a remarkably high performance.
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