Rewilding

Rewilding Coombeshead, a rewilding project in Devon run by former farmer and conservationist Derek Gow, has released fifty European turtle doves and ten white storks into the wild. All the birds were captive-bred on the project's property, which was formerly farmland.

The turtle dove and white stork are two species out of eleven being worked with at the Species Recovery Centre on Rewilding Commbeshead - the other nine are the Eurasian beaver, European wildcat, European water vole, Eurasian harvest mouse, black grouse, red-backed shrike, adder, glow-worm and mole cricket.

An article about the releases can be read here.

This video shows the turtle dove release:
 
Some news about the very slow project of reintroducing Dalmatian Pelicans to north-western Europe.

RESTORE Convenes Experts to Explore Pelican Return to the UK - Restore
"RESTORE’S PELICAN PANEL TAKES FLIGHT AS RSPB, WWT, ZSL, ROYAL SOCIETY OF WILDLIFE TRUSTS, AND NATURAL ENGLAND MEET – TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF BRITAIN’S LARGEST BIRD.

On 30th April this year, Britain’s finest Bird Brains, convened by RESTORE, met to discuss the potential reintroduction of Dalmatian Pelicans to the British Isles.

Right now, there is a missing gap in Britain’s avifauna: arguably, the largest of gaps. A three-metre-wingspan gap. A gap in the awe and wonder our ancestors would have enjoyed, watching the world’s largest flying bird soar over the skies of Avalon, the Fens, Broads and even the Humber Estuary. That avian gap is the largest living bird that has yet to return to our shores: the Dalmatian Pelican.

With over 100 years’ of ornithological experience on the Pelican Panel, chaired by RESTORE’s founding director Benedict Macdonald, it was a chance for those who have shaped our bird conservation, aviculture and licensing to come together for serious discussion and debate.

Since the publication of Rebirding in April 2019, awareness has grown of the degree to which our avian baseline has shifted not over decades – but centuries. A range of wetland species, from furtive Baillon’s crakes to resplendent Ruffs, have virtually disappeared from the wetland landscape. Others, such as common crane, once completely extirpated, have recolonised, and benefited from inspirational reintroduction efforts by RSPB and WWT.

Dalmatian Pelicans, however, have lost an entire northern European population. Once breeding from the Somerset Levels to the Netherlands, Denmark and the Rhone Valley in Germany, this majestic megafauna was certainly hunted for food, and may also have been lost due to wetland drainage come the Middle Ages. It currently persists only as a species in southern Europe. But reintroducing pelicans to the UK could proof the entire species’ future against extinction.

The Pelican Panel, the first of 2025, heard inspirational insights from a range of speakers, including RSPB England director Michael Coppleston, who focused upon how wetland restoration efforts especially on the Avalon Marshes could be pertinent to pelican reintroductions. Michael and his organisation have pioneered a whole range of wetland restoration schemes and species-specific recoveries, such as that of the bittern, so it was wonderful to hear how the RSPB’s science-led approach could potentially apply to the restoration of another fish-eating species, which is expected to remain confined largely to well-protected wetlands.

The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, renowned for their species reintroduction and avicultural work – led on the panel by Clare Dinnis – have pioneered success in large wetland bird reintroductions such as the Great Crane Project, which has restored this magnificent wetland species to large areas of south-western England, Wales and the Midlands. The WWT talked about the avicultural practicalities of breeding and nurturing Dalmatian pelicans.

ZSL’s Lucia Snyderman shares fascinating insights into the ecological history of Dalmatian Pelicans in Britain. Her vivid analyses of how pelicans were eaten by our ancestors, living in the Avalon Marshes, really brought to life the reality of how pelicans may have vanished, and her stable isotope analysis of British pelican bones will reveal what pelicans used to eat, and how they used to fish within our shores.

Natural England, whose species reintroduction taskforce continues to grow in scope and ambition, joined the panel to share their valuable inputs on how such an ambitious reintroduction could be taken forwards, and the range of stakeholders that the panel should be bringing together over the coming months.

This first panel explored at length the available Dalmatian Pelican habitat in Britain. It was cautiously agreed that the Avalon Marshes in Somerset, home now to some of the most contiguous, undisturbed and fish-rich reed-beds in the country, would be one of the foremost areas for consideration. And evidence was put forwards by RESTORE’s species restoration ecologist, Peter Cooper, for the pelicans’ ability to fly long distances to forage, and their ability to use coastal habitats – such as the Severn Estuary – in winter months. With Britain’s rich coastline, this was considered an important factor by all on the Panel, as any British pelicans would undoubtedly benefit from the riches of our estuaries and coasts.

The second panel, convened by Restore later this year, will focus on stakeholder engagement, including angling, and international collaboration. "

(I personally think that there is little more to be discovered than picking the biggest wetland, building a wooden nest platform with dummies of adult pelicans, releasing some zoo or wild juveniles, and hoping the birds figure it out themselves. Escaped zoo pelicans proven remarkably able to live in the wild, and there is no experience of reintroducing pelicans otherwise).
 
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Two pairs of White-Tailed Eagles have raised three chicks this year in southern England. One was a new pair in Dorset which raised a single chick, with the other pair raising two in Sussex. The Sussex pair also bred in 2023 and 2024, raising three chicks in total, so now six have been raised in the wild from the Isle of Wight reintroduction. Once this phase is complete plans are being made for a similar project in Exmoor:
Two pairs of White-tailed Eagles breed successfully in southern England - Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation
 
A conservation effort to reintroduce the corncrake to the Lower Derwent Valley in Yorkshire has been launched. A group of chicks are already being housed at the Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve, and are planned to be released in September. The project will also involve the restoration of hay meadows and creating tailored breeding habitats.

If successful, this will be another bit of good news for British corncrakes, which have seen stable or growing populations in their last wild haunts in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Islands, as well as a progressively growing reintroduced population in East Anglia.
 
A conservation effort to reintroduce the corncrake to the Lower Derwent Valley in Yorkshire has been launched. A group of chicks are already being housed at the Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve, and are planned to be released in September. The project will also involve the restoration of hay meadows and creating tailored breeding habitats.

If successful, this will be another bit of good news for British corncrakes, which have seen stable or growing populations in their last wild haunts in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Islands, as well as a progressively growing reintroduced population in East Anglia.
Really good news, in France their populations are in very bad shape especially in their historical strongholds in the wetlands of the Northern part of the country, less than 100 pairs are supposed to remain.
Conversely small populations have been rediscovered (unless they are new settlings) and may increase in the Southern Alps, only distant for a few kilometres to the Mediterranean sea.
I'm not aware of any reintroduction project of this bird in France, nor elsewhere in Continental Europe.
 
A conservation effort to reintroduce the corncrake to the Lower Derwent Valley in Yorkshire has been launched. A group of chicks are already being housed at the Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve, and are planned to be released in September. The project will also involve the restoration of hay meadows and creating tailored breeding habitats.

If successful, this will be another bit of good news for British corncrakes, which have seen stable or growing populations in their last wild haunts in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Islands, as well as a progressively growing reintroduced population in East Anglia.

The news about corncrakes being reintroduced to Yorkshire is really fantastic and hopefully down the line, a great boost to the species population overall. One of my life ambitions is to see these extraordinary birds return to a site of which I am a trustee. With continued sensitive management of our hay meadows and where necessary, sensitive predator control, I believe this could one day be achieved. The prospect of hearing their calls back in our landscape would be truly wonderful.
 
Waldrappteam, the Austrian group dedicated to reintroduction of the Waldrapp or Northern Bald Ibis in the Alps, just started another migration.

News EN - Waldrapp

I hope to follow the news over the next weeks, as a group of 26 (?) ibis and a microlight airplane travel across Germany, France and Spain teaching the ibis the migration to the wintering grounds. The group should be also possible to track daily on the paraglide and Animal Tracker website.
 
2.0 European Lynxes have just been reintroduced in the Thuringian woods (Germany), one of them comes from Karlsruhe Zoo.
WWF Deutschland on Instagram: "Zwei neue Pinselohren im Thüringer Wald! Während Carlo vorsichtig Schritt für Schritt die Freiheit entdeckt, stürzt sich Baron voller Energie ins Abenteuer. ✨ Carlo wuchs im Zoo Karlsruhe in einem naturnahen Gehege ohne Menschenkontakt auf und bereitete sich im Auswilderungsgehege auf sein neues Leben vor. Jetzt streift er – ausgestattet mit einem GPS-Sender – durch die Wälder, um uns wertvolle Einblicke in die Rückkehr des Luchses zu geben. Baron dagegen hat eine zweite Chance bekommen: Abgemagert aufgefunden, wurde er im Bärenpark Worbis aufgepäppelt und ist nun stark genug, um sein eigenes Revier zu erkunden. 200 Jahre lang fehlte der Luchs in Mitteleuropa – doch wir holen ihn zurück! Mit dem Projekt „Luchs Thüringen“ setzen wir auf gezielte Auswilderungen, um eine eigenständige Population aufzubauen und die so wichtige Brücke zwischen Harz und Bayerischem Wald zu schlagen. __________ Das Projekt „Luchs Thüringen – Europas Luchse vernetzen“ hat eine Laufzeit bis Ende August 2027 und wird im Rahmen des Programms „Förderung von Vorhaben zur Entwicklung von Natur und Landschaft“ (ENL) des Thüringer Ministeriums für Umwelt, Energie, Naturschutz und Forsten (TMUENF) umgesetzt. Unsere Projektpartner: @bundth @bund_bundesverband @umwelt_th @wildkatzendorf_huetscheroda @forst.thueringen ACDB Rumänien @romsilva.rnp Landesjagdverband Thüringen @Unigoettingen UNESCO Biosphärenreservat Thüringer Wald @naturpark_thueringer_wald @natura2000thueringerwald"
 
Rewilding program of European lynx in east German state of Saxony has first success - 2 lynx kittens were found on photo trap recently. Their mother Alva was captured in Switzerland in 2024 and relocated to west Erzgebirge mountains.
source

Polish ornitologists disscuss posibility of reintroduction of Golden eagle in lowlands in northeast Poland.
source
 
I have a question about rewilding with horses and cattle in Europe: Are all of the rewilded horses and cattle fenced in or are some of them free roaming?
 
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