Experimental release of young captive-bred black storks in Ticino Regional Park–Lombardy, Italy: as potential support to the wild population

Summary

The black stork (Ciconia nigra), with only seven known breeding pairs in Italy by 2008 and no historical Italian breeding record before 1994, was the subject of an experimental captive-release program at Ticino Regional Park in Lombardy, testing whether captive-bred young could survive, migrate to African wintering grounds, and eventually join the wild population, co-financed by the CARIPLO Foundation. Young storks reared at Swiss and Italian breeding centers were held in a large pre-release aviary with a live-fish pond to develop wild foraging skills, then released and tracked via satellite transmitters, a method previously validated on wild storks in France and the Czech Republic; two birds were released in 2005 and two more, younger and given a shorter aviary period to preserve migratory instinct, in 2006. Of the four birds, three were lost to presumed illegal shooting within days to months of release, a major cause of stork mortality nationally, where over 80% of storks observed in Italy reportedly fail to survive to autumn due to hunting. The fourth, a male released in 2006, was tracked for 387 days, moving from northern Italy to coastal Algeria and Tunisia before unexpectedly returning to Italy within a week and remaining there, still alive and healthy as of a February 2009 sighting. Major difficulties included scarcity of captive-bred storks and illegal hunting as the dominant mortality cause. The project rates itself Partially Successful, demonstrating captive-reared storks can survive and migrate long distances but with no confirmed integration into the wild African wintering population, and plans further release trials.