Endangered birds migrating on epic journey from central Europe shot dead as they flew over Spain

J. López-Lago

Extremadura

Tuesday, 8 April 2025, 18:21

The ibis eremita (Geronticus eremita) is known as the northern bald ibis. It is black and the size of a large seagull, but it is its long, curved orange beak that makes it recognisable from hundreds of metres away. That is why the shooting down of this species in Spain's Extremadura region is incomprehensible. Five birds were killed by two people in 2019 - their trial is pending sentence - and a sixth was killed at the end of last year, although the crime was only denounced this week. They were shot with bullets in the first incident and a pellet gun in the second. The current situation for this bird species is so dire that it is hardly surprising that there are calls for those who shot them to go to prison.

The ibis eremita is a bird in serious danger of extinction. Their situation is so critical that, in order to prevent them from losing their migratory instinct and inbreeding from weakening the species, these birds are accompanied by four people in two paramotors from central Europe to guide them through the air towards southern Spain. A flock of more than 30 individual birds follow Helena and Barbara, two foster mothers whose faces were the first the chicks saw when they broke through their eggshells in Austria. "There are films about this, it is not fantasy, it is a behaviour acquired at hatching during a brief window of time described by the Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz (Vienna, 1948) as 'Imprinting'," explains Alfonso Marzal, a zoology professor at the University of Extremadura.

This forced migration following their two human 'mothers' requires logistics by land and culminates after 50 days when the ibis eremita land at a repopulation centre between Vejer and Barbate (Cadiz province), where they can mingle with more of their own species. Their hosts are 250 sedentary specimens belonging to three colonies where they have been breeding since 2004. Such is their involvement in preventing their population decline that the volunteers wear black and carry an orange beak on their heads so they can get closer to the birds to check them thoroughly.

When they mature, some of them fly over Extremadura, a place that Miguel Ángel Quevedo, a veterinarian at the Zoobotánico de Jerez de la Frontera who is supporting the recovery of this species, believes "would be the ideal place for ibis eremita due to the conditions that exist there. It is not out of the question that one day they will colonise Extremadura."

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However, alarm bells rang when, in 2019, from his terrace in Montemolín, a person shot and killed five ibis eremita, an act that passed judgement in December in Badajoz, but which is awaiting sentence. The public prosecutor's office is asking for three years in prison. More recently, on 3 November last year, another ibis was found dead in a hunting reserve in Fregenal de la Sierra. For the 'ecologists in action' protest group, "Extremadura has become a black hole for one of the most endangered species in the world", said spokesperson for the group, Carlos Garrón. The group has also requested that the hunting reserve's licence to operate be suspended.

Although European programmes such as Life have saved the bird from extinction, numbers of the northern bald ibis are still concerning. This is a legendary bird that appears in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and which guided Muslims to Mecca when their migratory habits had not been altered.

Veterinarian Miguel Ángel Quevedo, who has been analysing this species for 30 years and is the driving force behind the 'Proyecto Eremita' (LIFE's Northern Bald Ibis project), estimates that there are around 1,000 in the world. "At the end of the 1990s, there were 250 specimens left in Morocco, the only place where they live self-sufficiently. The alarm was raised and the main international organisations designed a conservation programme. There are currently about 750 individuals in Morocco and another 250 in Spain thanks to the programme between the Zoobotánico de Jerez and the Junta de Andalucía. Those that are released come from captive breeding, so they are sedentary. At the same time, there is another European project from Austria and Germany to establish migratory populations, as the absence of thermals due to climate change prevented them from crossing the Alps to spend the winter in southern Italy. They called us to establish another European route and we have been connecting the migratory populations of central Europe with the sedentary population of Barbate for two years. We only have to teach them how to come with the paramotor, they do the return trip on their own," said Quevedo.

All these specimens, both sedentary and migratory, are geolocated, but their instinct makes them move within a radius of more than 300 kilometres. On one of these exploratory flights they arrived in Extremadura and five ibis eremita landed on a roof in Montemolín where a person killed them with a pellet shotgun, as certified by the autopsy carried out at the Amus wildlife recovery centre. At the same centre in Villafranca de los Barros, eight lead pellets were found in another bird called Hel found in 2024 in a hunting reserve in Fregenal de la Sierra.

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From the Federación Extremeña de Caza (Fedexcaza), its president, José María Gallardo, indicated to the press that what happened has nothing to do with hunting. "In the first case (in Montemolín) because pellet shotguns are banned for hunting, so it is not fair to mix hunting with what occurred when the perpetrator is just a brainless person."

According to Gallardo, it is good news that this species is being seen more and more in Extremadura, which he attributes to the shallow waters there. He also gave assurances that hunters are becoming more and more aware of this bird, which is why the case of Fregenal de la Sierra does worry him. "We will present ourselves as private prosecutors when the case comes to court, as in the cases of mistreatment of hunting dogs or the lynx killed in Don Benito. What I don't see right is to ask for the closure of an area with 200 members in which the hunters of the 'Sociedad de Cazadores' have been the first to work with the Guardia Civil to find those possibly responsible for the death, so as well as accusing the offender, the federation will defend the local hunting association."