Back into European wildlife: the reintroduction of the northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita).

Abstract

August 26, 2015, 09:40: in the morning after a cold night, the sun warms up and removes the last patches of fog. We are at the airfield of Mauterndorf in the Austrian Alps at 1,100 m above sea level; a team of 14 people and 31 juvenile northern bald ibis. Despite the wonderful surroundings, our mood is rather depressed. Our aim is to lead the group of ibis across the Alps to northern Italy. Two hours ago, two microlight aircrafts started at the airfield, each with a human foster parent in the back seat. At the beginning, the birds followed them willingly, as we expected them to do. But after ten minutes, the birds headed back to the airfield. In the following two hours, the flight teams tried to lure the birds away with calling and endless circling. It felt as if the birds were fixed to the airfield with rubber bands. They followed for a few kilometers then turned back, again and again. Finally, after 67 flight kilometers in a radius of just 5 km around the airfield, the team gave up and landed with the birds. It was definitely not the first time that something like this had happened, but this time it was particularly frustrating, firstly, because four days ago the birds had followed perfectly for 120 km from the breeding site at the northern foothills of the Alps to Mauterndorf, and secondly, because this migration journey was an ambitious attempt to improve the human-led migration method by doubling the group size of the birds, and expectations were high. For now, there was only one course of action: relax, wait for the next morning, and