How zoos can best support recovery of Waldrapp Ibis?

[Jurek7]

am following this website about the Waldrapp / Northern Bald Ibis restoriation using paraglides to guide young birds on migration. I am very surprised that big and colorful bird in the densely populated Europe is not more popular. There is not many more completely locally extinct species at Europeans doorstep:
Waldrappteam
home en - Waldrapp

Zoos supply young birds for release. I wonder what zoos can do more to support this plan?

Electrocution on old-type electricity pole kills released Waldrapps, but also White Storks, Eagle Owls, birds of prey and other owls, and probably thousands commoner birds. Could zoos in Austria and Italy set projects to sponsor making electricity poles safe for birds?

Zoos in Europe commonly have free-flying semi-wild white storks. There is a semi-wild non-migratory colony of Waldrapp since 25 years, in Kondrad Lorentz research station at Grunau, Austria. Waldrappe
Could zoos in Central and Southern Europe set up free-flying colonies of Northern Bald Ibises in the same way?

(Photo by vogelcommando Northern bald ibis - ZooChat)

 

[Cassynatorium]

I'd say there's much better ways to go about it than what konrad lorenz is doing now.
The focus should be on the remaining wild populations, rather than creating new ones, and letting their range grow with numbers. Or expanding their range artificially by relocating wild individuals (since they wouldn't or almost wouldn't need rehabilitation). I think a zoos role in this is keeping a healthy captive population in case of dwindling numbers in the wild or even extinction. A zoo could also supply birds to enrich the gene pool if numbers get too low.

Creating a completely wild population takes a lot of time, effort and money, i mean, they had to fly paragliders over the alps to get the birds to migrate right. It all sounds great at first, but all this time, money and effort is much better and much easier spent on supporting the continued growth of the wild populations that still exist. Zoos should just maintain a captive population and spread awareness, to get more involved they can fund the conservation efforts with public donations or their own profits.

 

[Jurek7]

This is an interesting suggestion, but field conservationists are very reluctant to any change. Translocating birds could be seen as harming the original population.

Actually, few years ago, two tiny new wild colonies were established north of the main breeding population in Morocco.
New Northern Bald Ibis breeding sites discovered in Morocco - MaghrebOrnitho
This could be understood that the old colonies lack room to grow and birds must emigrate to breed. It might make sense to especially protect these small new groups, and possibly translocate ibises even further north where there are suitable cliffs. But there seems to be no interest in it.