Endangered
Northern Bald Ibis
Geronticus eremita
The northern bald ibis, hermit ibis, or Waldrapp is a migratory Old World ibis found in open areas such as grasslands, rocky mountains, and semi-deserts, often close to running water.
Appearance
The plumage is black, with bronze-green and violet iridescence, and there is a wispy ruff on the bird's hind neck. The face and head are dull red and unfeathered, and the long, curved bill and the legs are red. The sexes are similar in plumage, although males are generally larger than females, and, as with other ibises that breed in colonies, have longer bills.
The northern bald ibis is a large, glossy black bird, 70–80 cm (28–31 in) long with a 125–135 cm (49–53 in) wingspan and an average weight of 1.0–1.3 kg (35–46 oz).
Published measurements include mass about 68.
Range and habitat
Unlike many other ibises, that nest in trees and feed in wetlands, the northern bald ibis breeds on undisturbed cliff ledges, and forages for food in irregularly cultivated, grazed dry areas such as semi-arid steppes, and fallow fields. The close proximity of adequate steppe feeding areas to breeding cliffs is an important habitat requirement. The northern bald ibis was once widespread across the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and central Europe. Fossil bones have been found at Solothurn dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods.
It disappeared from Europe over 300 years ago, although reintroduction programmes in the region are underway. To combat these low numbers, reintroduction programs have been instituted internationally in recent times, with a semi-wild breeding colony in Turkey that counted almost 250 birds in 2018 as well as sites in Austria, Italy, Spain, and northern Morocco.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
This gregarious species commutes in flocks from the cliff breeding sites or winter roosts to its feeding areas, flying in a V formation. During the breeding season, the ibises regularly forage up to 15 km (9.3 mi) from the colony, and, although steppe not in current cultivation is preferred for feeding, they will also use fallow ground, and occasionally even actively cultivated fields.
The northern bald ibis consumes a very wide variety of mainly animal food. Faecal analysis of the Moroccan and Syrian breeding population has shown that lizards and tenebrionid beetles predominate in the diet, although small mammals, ground-nesting birds, and invertebrates such as snails, scorpions, spiders, and caterpillars are also taken. The northern bald ibis breeds in loosely spaced colonies, nesting on cliff ledges or amongst boulders on steep slopes. Volunteer climbers have created extra ledge spaces in the Souss-Massa colonies to ensure that breeding population is not limited by the availability of nest ledges, and artificial nest boxes are used in the managed colony at Birecik.
In crisis
In 2019 there were about 700 wild birds remaining in southern Morocco. The down-listing of conservation status for the species has been described as controversial decision and not taking fully into account the recent extinction in the wild of the genetically distinct and only long-range migratory population that used to breed in the Middle East and wintering in Eastern Africa. Although the northern bald ibis was long extinct in Europe, many colonies in Morocco and Algeria survived until the early 20th century, when they began to decline more rapidly, the last colony in Algeria disappearing in the late 1980s.
In Morocco there were about 38 colonies in 1940 and 15 in 1975, but the last migratory populations in the Atlas Mountains had vanished by 1989. The species is endangered according to the IUCN scale, with an estimated population in 2018 of around 147 breeding pairs in the wild and over 1,000 in captivity.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Northern Bald Ibis is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Northern Bald Ibis, Wikidata item Q245414. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
