At the end of the last year Aukje van Gerven, Training Manager at Rewilding Europe, visited the Oder Delta for a scouting trip in the area to meet the local team and find the right locations for a nature guide training, that will be held here in spring as part of Pelican Way of LIFE initiative.
In mid-February, the team of the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) successfully ringed and tagged with satellite transmitters two Dalmatian pelicans. The birds were tagged in the Burgas Lakes area, Bulgaria.
For the eighth years in a row, the breeding season for Dalmatian pelicans has started in the Persina Nature Park.
A few weeks ago, one more Dalmatian pelican was ringed and tagged with a satellite transmitter in the Kleisova lagoon in Messolonghi.
The Danube Delta is one of Europe’s largest and most important wetlands. Efforts by the Rewilding Ukraine team and partners to restore natural water flow here are great news for Dalmatian pelicans and great news for local communities.
At the end of last year and at the beginning of January, a team of experts and volunteers from the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) made a great effort to improve the nesting conditions of the protected Dalmatian pelican on the territory of the “Mandra-Poda” Special Protection Area.
At the end of December, an ornithologist Maksym Yakovlev and a zoologist Oleksandr Gaydash traditionally went to the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta to count the Dalmatian pelicans. Due to the war, access to some areas was limited or even closed, but scientists managed to do the counts in many large water bodies of the delta.
At the very end of the last year, the team of the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB)/Birdlife Bulgaria visited the Kalimok-Brushlen Protected Area with the mission of improving nesting conditions for the Dalmatian pelicans in the area.
Traditionally at the end of the year, we review all the successes and troubles that the European Dalmatian pelican population faced in 2022. This keystone species, being the ambassador of healthy and well-connected wetlands in Europe, is still very much dependent on conservation actions.
An international census of wintering Dalmatian pelicans on the Balkan Peninsula took place in late November and mid-December. The purpose of the census is to collect data on the number and distribution of endangered Dalmatian pelicans in the study area. Тhe study was conducted in two stages. A census was done at the end of November in the Western Balkans – Western Greece, Albania, and Montenegro. In the period December 9-12, wetlands in Bulgaria and Romania were visited by scientists.