Conference & Symposium Chicago
Newsletter 04/12/2018
In November 2018, five members of the LIFE project for the reintroduction of the Northern Bald Ibis joined the 2nd International Wildlife Reintroduction Conference in Chicago, organised by the IUCN Reintroduction Specialist Group and attended by conservationists from all over the world.
The presentations ranged from methodological approaches regarding project management and dealing with uncertainty and risk, exciting reintroduction projects with various species - from butterflies to great apes all over the world - to future opportunities like genetic rescue, frozen zoos and de-extinction. Five e-posters about various aspects of our ongoing reintroduction project were presented during the conference.
All the presentations clearly showed that reintroduction - or in a broader sense conservation translocation - changed from a rather exotic conservation discipline to a broad, powerful and professional field of research and conservation, leaving behind the image of a “low success discipline”. The recently published IUCN Global Reintroduction Perspectives describe 349 projects from all over the world, most of them referred to as very successful or successful. Main regions for the implementation and the development of theoretical framework are North and South America, New Zealand and Australia. Continental Europe was rather underrepresented at the conference, however there are well-known European translocation projects like the long-running Bearded Vulture project, the reintroduction of the Osprey in western Switzerland and, of course, the reintroduction of the Northern Bald Ibis.
Prior to the conference, four of our team participated in a four-day training workshop on Effective Conservation Translocations, organized by the IUCN Reintroduction Specialist Group. This excellent workshop provided us with quantitative approaches for an efficient project management and we aim to make use of this knowledge in collaboration with members of the Reintroduction Specialist Group.
The outstanding highlight during our days in Chicago was a one-day symposium on the Reintroduction of Migratory Birds at Lincoln Park Zoo, hosted by the LIFE Northern Bald Ibis project. 25 participants presented various projects with migratory bird species like Whooping Cranes, the Asian Houbara, the Australian Orange-bellied Parrot or the Northern Bald Ibis. The aim of the symposium was to learn about various methodological approaches for the conservation of migratory species. On our website we provide access to the programme, abstracts and presentations of the symposium.
Picture (Markus Unsöld): Participants at the symposium on Reintroduction of Migratory Birds, organized by LIFE Northern Bald Ibis at Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago.
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