Bizarre photo of the month goes to the people involved in the bald ibis reintroduction programme, who released six birds this week in the Sierra de Retín (Cádiz), making a total of 24 so far this year, and 215 since the proyecto Eremita began. El País. Note: the hats, in addition to an essential fashion item this summer in Cadiz, are part of the plot to confuse the birds that they have been raised by ibises not humans.

The aim is to reintroduce the bird to areas where it has become extinct and to strengthen existing wild populations in North Africa. The last definite reference to the bald ibis breeding in Spain is from a 15th century falcony book.

See also Bald Ibis breed in Spain for first time in 500 years

• Proyecto Ibis Eremita – Zoobotánico de Jerez
• BirdLife Species Factsheet (comprehensive)
  

Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, (Poza de la Sal, March 14, 1928), the great Spanish naturalist and broadcaster, died 30 years ago today. He was killed in a helicopter accident while filming in Alaska on his birthday March 14, 1980.

He was an expert in falconry and animal behavior and spent many years studying wolves, but above all he was a great communicator who captivated Spain in the 1970′s, doing more than anybody to promote natural history among the general public. He is best known for the highly successful and influential series El Hombre y la Tierra (1975–1980), which you can watch online here. Millions of homes in Spain were captivated by the series, and there are possibly apocryphal tales of the streets being empty when the episodes were broadcast. The series and his other work played no small part in the change in attitude towards wildlife in general and wolves in particular. Rodríquez de la Fuente used wolves he had raised himself from cubs living in a semi-wild fenced estate for the film. They were different times with inferior cameras than today. But, for all its trickery, the episode on el lobo still stand out as superb and beautiful piece of nature documentary and holds a rightful place in contemporary Spanish folk memory. And his work inspired a whole generation of young Spanish naturalists who work in nature conservation today.

• More from Crónica Verde
• Wikipedia
• A certain degree of hagiography surrounds his figure (there are more 60 monuments to him in Spain including schools, plaques, parks and streets).
• Special in El Mundo

The legacy of his work is continued with the Fundación Félix Rodríguez .

The Great Mountain Corridor is an idea to create a vast ecological corridor connecting the Cantabrian Mountains, the Pyrenees and the Alps, and possibly eventually, the Balkans, along which wolves, bears and other animals could roam relatively unhindered.

The GMC is a 1300-kilometre swathe of land connecting the Cantabrian mountains in Spain to the Italian Alps via the Pyrenees and Massif Central in France. It might even be extended into the Carpathian mountains of eastern Europe. “It’s not unrealistic to think that in 20 years there could be a good corridor between the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans,” says Miquel Rafa of Obra Social Caixa Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, a charitable organisation that is promoting the project. Some of the land in the proposed corridor is already protected, and Rafa’s aim is to fill in the gaps. Over the past decade, his organisation has spent 8 million euro buying 80 square kilometres of land between the Cantabrians and the Pyrenees. He estimates that only another 80 square kilometres is needed to complete that part of the corridor. There are already success stories to report. Last year, a wolf from the Cantabrian mountains was spotted in the Pyrenees, not far from one of many packs that arrived there from the French Alps around 10 years ago – the first wolves in the Pyrenees since the 1930s. These packs made a hazardous crossing of the Rhone valley, parts of which are industrialised. It will be remarkable if groups from the Cantabrians and French Alps meet and breed in the Pyrenees, says Rafa, as the populations have been separated for over 800 years. To win local support, Rafa and colleagues have also provided shepherds with Pyrenean mountain dogs, a muscular breed that will defend livestock against wolves. More here from New Scientist article nabbed here “Megaconservation: Saving wildernesses on a giant scale”

See also Territori i Paisatge here

See also this article in El País on the end of the urbanisation boom of the Spanish Mediterranean and its effects.

According to a new EU study reported in El Mundo, Spain has not determined the status of two-thirds of its habitats. The study looked at 1,182 species and 216 habitat types between 2001-2006.

Spain is the EU country which has provided least data, and it has no data for 64% of its habitats and for 44% of species despite this being against EU law.

Environmental groups are planning a large demonstration in Talavera de la Reina on 20th June to campaign for the recovery of the longest river in Iberia, the Tajo (Tagus).

Thanks to Damien Martin of the excellent Wild Spain for bringing this to my attention. He notes here:

The rally…seeks to bring attention to the fact that 80% of the Tagus is siphoned off to fuel industrial agriculture and urban development in the Spanish Mediterranean regions of Murcia, Alicante and Almería (fruit and veg for export, golf courses for ex-pats and tourists) and that the small portion which finally flows into Portugal is heavily polluted with effluent from Madrid.

The Tagus Network (Red del Tajo) have produced this PDF in English:

All Spanish and Portuguese children are taught that the Tagus, the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula, has its source in the Albarracín Mountains of Spain and runs westwards for over 1000 km, before flowing into the Atlantic next to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. Sadly this schoolbook statement is currently fiction or, to be exact, only 20% true. The fact is 80% of the Tagus is siphoned off to fuel industrial agriculture and urban development in the Spanish Mediterranean. What remains of the natural mid and lower reaches of the Tagus are a shadow of their former selves, heavily polluted, and, in places, little more than open sewers. Read full text in English: Battle of the Tagus: Citizens of Spain and Portugal unite to save their greatest river

• More information
• Photo above of El Tajo at Toledo (Wikipedia)

Spain has been awarded with two new Biosphere Reserves: the island of Fuerteventura and its surrounding waters and Gerês-Xures, a natural area straddling Portugal and Orense, Spain. Spain now has 40 such reserves. In the photo, Dunas de Corrajeo, in northern Fuerteventura.

El Mundo

According to a new report by Oceana, if Spain is to meet the deadline in three years imposed by the United Nations to protect at least 10% of the world’s marine areas, it needs to rapidly increase the paltry 0.5% currently protected. This means protecting almost 65 km² a day.

The designation of new protected marine areas such as Seco de los Olivos (Andalusia), the seamounts of the Mallorca channel (Balearic Islands), the canyons of Palamos and Creus (Catalonia), the Seco de Palos (facing Murcia) and Cape Nao (region of Valencia), along with the expansion of other already protected areas such as Columbretes, Alborán and Doñana, are some of Oceana’s proposals in this report concerning approximately 50 areas in the Spanish Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic waters….“Not only should new areas be afforded protection, but also many of the existing areas should be expanded. Nearly half of Spain’s marine protected areas barely reach a surface area of one square kilometre, making them inefficient for conserving certain habitats and species,” affirms Ricardo Aguilar, director of research and projects for Oceana in Europe and campaign director on board the Ranger.

• Read in Oceana (English)
• Propuesta de áreas marinas de importancia ecológica: Atlántico Sur y Mediterráneo español (pdf)
• Above image the areas proposed

According SEO/BirdLife, the wetlands and freshwater lakes of Spain are being destroyed at a critical rate, putting wildlife and habitats under extreme pressure. In a statement released to mark International Wetlands Day, SEO has condemned the loss of 68 percent of Spain’s freshwater lakes and 58 percent of the country’s coastal wetlands (over the last??). They state that these key conservation areas “are a mere testimony to what they were in the past.” In a similar line, Ecologists in Action blamed “industrial contamination, development, and waste dumping” for the loss of this essential habitat.

• Read in El País

Some more results according to the study:

• 4 out of 10 Spaniards would be prepared to change their own consumer and leisure habits to help conserve the country’s natural heritage and biodiversity.
• 8 out of 10 are in favour of the promotion of “ecological” agriculture.
• Spanish people see a very strong connection between rural development and the conservation of biodiversity.
• 80% say that progress and development of rural areas will guarantee the conservation of nature and the protection of natural species, in addition to improving the life of people living in cities.
• Most believe that that the recovery of endangered species will help increase the value of rural areas. This is linked to the results showing that the abandonment of the countryside is seen as the third most important cause of loss of biodiversity (17%,) after pollution (28%) and building (30%) and ahead of climate change (16%).
• Because of this more than half of those interviewed (52%) said that they would prepared to pay a tax to promote development and progress in rural areas. However, society is more concerned by the negative consequences of environmental degradation than for nature in itself. People stated that the loss of species would affect them directly in terms of health (31%) and in terms of food quality (31%). Read in El Pais

The survey is line with the ideas promoted by the RUNA project of the Fundación Félix Rodríguez which in some capacity I hope to be involved with.

RUNA seeks to combine rural life with the natural world, and hand back the custody of the latter to the people who live in isolated rural areas, and who, by accident or design, over the centuries managed to foster such a rich biodiversity. This is to be a partnership between those who live and work in the rural world (farmers, hunters, foresters, etc) and those who work in natural history (biologists, wardens and environmentalists), turning biodiversity into an economic asset which can foster sustainable development and bring young people back.

The programme can be downloaded here on pdf.

• El País
• More on Spanish rivers

Newly hatched turtle being measured (CSIC)

246 eggs of loggerhead turtles (tortuga boba – Caretta caretta) have hatched in the last few days on a beach in Cabo de Gata, Almeria. The eggs were taken from Cabo Verde, where a third of the world’s population of Caretta caretta lives, and form part of a reintroduction programme of the Junta de Andalucía, CSIC and the Canarian goverment (Loggerhead turtles in Fuerteventura). They have been taken to a reintoriduction sent which will raise them for the first few months to reduce mortality rates. El Mundo

It will take at least 15 years to be able to begin to measure the success of the project when hopefully some of those turtles hatched will return to the same beach as adults. Small populations of loggerhead turtle in the Mediterranean exist in the Turkey and Greece.

See also:

• Loggerhead turtle eggs to be buried in Fuerteventura
• Loggerhead turtles hatch in Almeria (October 21st, 2007)
• loggerhead turtles (Wikipedia)

The director of Greenpeace España, Juan López Uralde, states that the announcement “is a first step but is insuficient to put a stop to desertification”. El Mundo

See also

• Forests in Spain
• Forested area of Spain (Forum)

800 Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta – tortuga boba) eggs are to be buried today in La Playa de Cofete de Fuerteventura in an attempt to reintroduce the species in the Canary Islands. The eggs have been brought from the Cape Verde. 200 more are to be sent to the Centro de Recuperación de Especies in Taliarte, in Gran Canaria, and 400 to the Estación Biológica in Doñana, Andalucia. Loggerhead turtles disappeared from the Canary Islands some 300 years ago. It wil take at least 15 years to be able to begin to measure the success of the project when hopefully some of those turtles hatched will return to the same beach as adults. Terra

More on loggerhead turtles (Wikipedia – above photo) which notes that the genus name “Caretta” is a latinization of the French “caret”, meaning turtle, tortoise, or sea turtle.  Small populations of loggerhead turtle in the Mediterranean exist in the Turkey and Greece.

See also: Loggerhead turtles hatch in Almeria (October 21st, 2007)

Interesting news from Galicia. An environmental collective, Fegama, are calling for a more positive and effective management of the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) in their region by encouraging man’s coexistence with the species rather than continuing with the age-old battle against it. They suggest that instead of the present, negative method of paying farmers compensation for damages to livestock caused by wolves (often a long, drawn-out affair), that a system of subsidising farmers in areas shared by the wolves would be more beneficial to both. Subsidies would be used to pay for preventative measures such as livestock guardian dogs and fencing to protect flocks from the Galician wolf population of some 70 family packs. They are going to start a campaign of education to dispel the fear caused by myths surrounding the animal and to promote awareness of the important role that wolves play in the region’s biodiversity by keeping down numbers of their natural prey, for example Wild boar and Roe deer, two species that are potentially destructive. As always, prevention is better than cure.

News from La Voz de Galicia

Read about Iberian wolf conservation management on IberiaNature forum

 News from elmundo.es

Photo from Mundo de Gea

More on Spain’s bears on the forum

As part of the Spanish ornithological society SEO/Birdlife’s campaign, El Sonido del Bosque (Sounds of the Forests), work-camps will begin this August to improve the habitat of the Cantabrian Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus cantábricus) in the Picos de Europa National Park. Working through to mid-December while the birds are at their most inactive, they hope to help promote the growth of berry-bearing plants and, at the same time, identify the Capercaillie population within the areas where the field-work will be concentrated. The last censuses of the remaining main populations centred in Asturias and León were carried out in 2001 and 1998-2000 respectively and gave a figure of about 400 individuals in total. SEO/Birdlife give a figure of 500, which supposedly takes into account the numbers of Capercaillie in the subspecies’ other habitats of Galicia and Cantabria, a number strongly refuted by the Asturian ornithological society, the Coordinadora Ornitolóxica d’Asturies, who say the total population must now be only about half that number.

News from El Diario de León.

Read all about the San Glorio bears on the forum.

Watch a video of two young Cantabrian brown bears on elmundo.es.

Photo from Zoobotánico de Jerez

A pair of Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita), of which less than 250 individuals survive in the whole world, have managed to breed in the wild in Spain for what is probably the first time in 500 years. The pair have laid two eggs in the Spanish Ministry of Defence training ground in the Sierra de El Retín, in Barbate (Cádiz). The breeding represents an important landmark for the ‘Proyecto Ibis Eremita’, which with the help of the Zoo Botánico de Jerez and the Estación Biológica de Doñana, is seeking to reintroduce the bird to areas where it has become extinct and to strengthen existing wild populations in North Africa. The last definite reference to the bald ibis breeding in Spain is from a 15th century falcony book. El País

Until recently the Northern Bald Ibis was believed to survive in the wild only in Morocco at Souss-Massa National Park (338 km²) where there are three colonies, and at the nearby Oued Tamri mouth, where there is one colony containing almost half the African breeding population, with some movement of birds between these two sites. In 2002 a relict colony was discovered in Syria, where the species was regarded to have vanished more than 70 years before. More from Wikipedia

• Proyecto Ibis Eremita – Zoobotánico de Jerez
• BirdLife Species Factsheet (comprehensive)
  

Doubtless, they also visited Paca and Tola with their new, hopeful mate Furaco.

News from lne.es

Follow the Cantabrian brown bear on IberiaNature forum

Photo from lavanguardia.es

Read more on Capercaillie in Spain on the forum.

I’m pleased to announce the first iberianatureforum sponsored wildlife project. The plan is to support the conservation of the endangered Southern Midwife toad (Alytes dickhilleni – above photo from sierradebaza.org.) The idea has arisen from a visit members of the forum made last month to the Zoo Botanico in Jerez de la Frontera, the best in Spain in terms of conservation of local species, and has been organised by joint forum-owner Clive whom I quote here.

• The zoo is in the process or requesting permission to collect from the wild an endangered species of amphibian for captive breeding and release and we (The Forum) can help out with the project.
• Alytes dickhilleni is a species of Midwife toad that only occurs in the Southern part of Spain hence its common name of “Betic / Southern Midwife Toad” after the “Baetic” mountain range in the Andalucía. (In Spanish it’s a Sapo partero bético).
• The project needs some large glass terrariums (5) in order to house and breed the toads that cost (the terrariums) about 150 Euros each. In return for our help the Iberianature Forum will be named as sponsors and our collaboration will be mentioned in all the results returned from the project. (We will be famous at last!)
• The community of iberianature has come a long way over the last year or so and we have all contributed to an excellent resource about the natural world of Iberia but this, for me at least, is an excellent opportunity for us as a group to help in a practical way some people who are really working hard to protect their environment.

If you like iberianature and you would like to contribute to this project please send me or Clive an email.

See on the forum

• The first iberianature forum sponsored wildlife project
• More on the Southern Midwife Toad (iberianatureforum’s hero of the month)

The Castilla and León law courts have vetoed the project put forward by Tres Provincias S.A. for a ski resort in the San Glorio region of the Cantabrian mountains in the north of Spain, citing climate change as the main reason for its very doubtful economic viability. This makes it the first plan to have been denied on the grounds of climate change. The judgement points out that when, in 2006, the regional government of Castilla and León modified the laws protecting the Natural Park of Fuentes Carrionas and Fuente Cobre-Montaña Palentina (land included in much of the project) to enable the building of a ski resort, no scientific study was included to take into account the effects of climate change.

The threats to the environment and the future of the Cantabrian brown bear made by the project have led to huge opposition from conservationists, who have provided many environmental impact reports. The court also recognises that this project would be incompatible with the survival of many species of flora and fauna of the area, including the bears whose Eastern population would be severely affected.

News from El País

Read all about the subject on Iberianature forum

Using a technique for the first time with this species, the Foundation for the Reintroduction of the Lammergeier hope to release a bird bred completely isolated from human contact. They’ve built a 6x6m platform at 1,500m in Ordesa which includes a heated nest with a “puppet” adult bird to feed the chick and, next to it, a cage which the chick will be moved into after 80 days to continue the natural imprinting process as in this area of the Pyrenees there is the largest population of the species in Europe. A feeding station next to the cage will provide opportunity for the chick (born in Feb.) to observe and learn natural adult behaviour. After 120 days the young bird will fly for the first time.
They say that this tecnique will be used in the “near future” for the release of three birds in the Picos de Europa, from which I guess will be next year, the only difference being that the birds will be relocated from the Pyrenees two weeks before their first flights in the Picos.

The conservation group are already using another technique of strategically placing caged adult birds in areas in which they hope to encourage the Lammergeier to return.

For more info go to the discussion on Iberianature forum

Posted by Lisa

See also http://www.iberianature.com/material/foixarda_panta.htm + http://www.iberianature.com/material/montjuic.htm