Zoologist and zoo director Severin Dressen explains: this is how this bird returned to Switzerland

class=”sc-29f61514-0 fQbOYE”>

It looks like he has years of wisdom behind him. His head is bald, wrinkled and reddish – almost as if he were a miniature replica of a very old man, including bluish age spots. The elongated black feathers on the neck are reminiscent of the attempts of mature men to overcome several more years of relentless baldness by crossing the remaining strands of hair. The rest of the plumage appears dirty black and reveals its metallic beauty only when the sun hits it at the right angle.

In fact, Waldrup has no chance of drawing attention to himself in our highly optimized outside world — except maybe for a short TikTok video called “Insane! Top 5 ugliest animals in the world. And yet Waldrapp is an absolute success story. For the global protection of species, the community of (Swiss) zoos, and now also for Switzerland.

The northern bald ibis was widespread in large parts of central and southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East until the 17th century, but was then extirpated from many parts, especially by overhunting, and only survived in a few small remnant populations. in Morocco, Syria and Turkey. The northern bald ibis disappeared from the Alpine region 400 years before a special team of conservationists in southern Germany and Austria reintroduced it along with zoo animals.

Swiss zoos such as Zoo Zurich, Zoo Basel or Tierpark Goldau have also sent animals for reintroduction projects in the Alps and, for some time, Spain in cooperation with the European Conservation Breeding Program EEP. The Swiss Zoo Association zooschweiz is also providing financial support for the relocation project. One of the main problems was that the northern bald ibis is a migratory bird, and he had to learn the route from his parents or with the help of other relatives. A difficult task when the species is completely extinct. Therefore, the first animals had to be trained at great expense to follow the light aircraft that flew ahead of them at the crossing of the Alps to the wintering grounds. You can imagine how many failures such a project had to endure. Even today, the colonies are not self-sustaining and need further support and protection from us humans.

We were all happier when we saw the northern hairless ibis for the first time on Swiss soil in 2019. On the way back from the winter quarters, one animal probably turned too far west and arrived in St. Gallen. If the animals were only transit guests for a few years, the next success came a few weeks ago: a pair of northern bald ibis with the original names “Rupert” (for female) and “Aenea” (for male) allowed themselves to be bred in the Zurich area low. Northern hairless ibises actually breed on isolated, steep walls that are difficult to access. But Rupert and Enea kept up with the times, ignoring the textbook and preferring to meditate on the windowsill of a Harley Davidson store a few hundred meters from Zurich airport. Despite the unusual and rather turbulent nesting site, the parents and two chicks are doing very well – you can see our live webcam at zoo.ch/waldrap.

So we hope this was just a prelude to the successful return of the long-lost northern bald ibis. A symbol of the highly resource-intensive but ultimately successful use of zoos and many other actors to protect local and global species.

Source: Blick