CP&P TAG

06/02/2026

06/01/2026

Eight crested ibises were released into the wild in a north-central Japanese town, decades after the birds went extinct in the country.

The birds went extinct on the Honshu main island in the 1970s, threatened by overhunting and environmental degradation.

Read more: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/JCRBxj

05/31/2026

05/20/2026

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05/13/2026

05/09/2026

The Northern Bald Ibis Was Sacred to Ancient Egyptians and Extinct in Europe for 300 Years. A Wild Population of 700 Remains in Morocco. They Have Forgotten Their Migration Route and Humans Are Teaching It Back to Them.

It was sacred to the Egyptians. It was painted in hieroglyphs as the Akh — the spirit of the dead. It used to breed across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. By the early 17th century, the last European birds were gone — overhunted, habitat destroyed. They were functionally gone from the continent for 300 years.

Geronticus eremita — the Northern Bald Ibis — survives today in one wild population: approximately 700 birds near Souss-Massa National Park in Morocco. A small semi-wild population was also reestablished in Syria briefly but collapsed during the civil war. A European reintroduction programme — using captive-bred birds — has established small breeding colonies in Austria, Germany, and Spain.

The problem with reintroduced birds: they have no wild elders to teach them the migration route. The knowledge is cultural, not genetic. Wild Northern Bald Ibises migrate from breeding grounds in Europe to wintering grounds in Ethiopia. Captive-bred birds don't know where to go.

The solution being trialled since 2011 by the Waldrapp Team in Austria: human-led migration. Researchers in microlight aircraft, wearing ibis costumes (to reduce human imprinting), fly alongside juvenile ibises from Austria over the Alps to Tuscany, Italy — teaching the route by demonstration. The birds follow the aircraft. They remember the route the following year — and lead younger birds themselves.

The knowledge is being rebuilt, one human-guided flight at a time.

When a species loses its cultural knowledge and we have to manually restore it — what does that cost, and is it worth it?

04/17/2026

04/10/2026

04/09/2026

We love that you have birds ❤️❤️❤️