The swedish white stork reintroduction programme

Abstract: Abstract: In 1954 the last breeding attempt by the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) in Sweden failed and the species was declared extinct from the Swedish fauna. Reasons for the extinction are thought to be a combination of issues such as habitat conversion, increased mortality and an overall decline of the European White Stork populations. Since 1989 an ongoing reintroduc-tion programme for the White Stork has been established in Scania, southern Sweden. The aim of the reintroduction programme is to re-establish a naturally breeding population of White Storks. The approach is based on captive breeding and release of established pairs that settle and breed in the vicinity to the release sites. The White Stork is also used as a flagship species for the restoration of the Swedish wetlands that have been severely affected by drain-age to the point that 90% has disappeared from the area. Today (2012) there are 34 free breed-ing pairs of project storks in Scania. These pairs do not migrate since they have been raised in captivity and are used to being fed year round and are hence not regarded as naturally behav-ing. However, it has been shown that the offspring of the introduced population are able to migrate. When these return to the breeding ground as adults they can settle and breed. The objective is to establish a migrating population parallel to the stationary population and as this migrating population continues to grow collect the stationary one. Issues that have arisen over the course of the programme have been to facilitate proper migration among the juveniles as well as the low breeding success among the free breeding population. The low reproductive success has partly been explained by the fact that the breeding storks create colonies around the release sites which has resulted in competition for food and disruptive aggression among the breeding pairs. However, the issues with migration and the low reproductive success also made management question the suitability of the reintroduced individuals to persist under Swedish conditions. The originally introduced individuals deriving from northern Africa has therefore gradually been replaced by individuals of eastern European decent. Further, the un-certain financial situation due to the programme being dependent on funding that needs to be reapplied for each year has slowed down the whole process. During the last couple of years practises have changed and captive juveniles have been released in an effort to facilitate true migration behaviour. This has resulted in a juvenile migration rate of approximately 80% since 2010. Within the next few years these individuals are expected to return from migration. The future of the programme will depend on the level of return among the migrating popula-tion, the breeding success among the reintroduced individuals as well as external factors such as the uncertain development of the other White Stork populations in Europe.