The aim is to reintroduce the white stork as a free-living and migratory breeding bird in its natural environment in Skåne.
The project includes breeding and releasing storks and improving the stork’s habitat. By protecting and recreating wetlands in the landscape, we can bring back the regions own bird as a Swedish breeding bird.
Conserving and managing of wetlands benefit not only the white stork but also many other plants and animals.
Breeding takes place in breeding aviaries and release aviaries. The larger breeding aviaries are located in Fulltofta and Hemmestorp. The release aviaries are smaller, mobile and placed in environments suitable for storks.
Since all project storks are ringed and registered in a database, we can follow the activities and relationships of individual birds. The storks are provided with an official steel ring (The Bird Ringing Centre, Museum of Natural History) and a colored project ring with clear numbers for reading from a distance.
Some birds have also been fitted with GPS transmitters.This allows us to follow the storks’ migration route south through Europe to Africa.
Young storks born in captivity during the year are transported to a place to be released at a single event, the ”Great Stork Release”. This has so far taken place from the aviary in Hemmestorp on the last Saturday in July. The captive-born storks then form a large group together with free-born storks, which promotes the migration south. The storks return to the breeding area when they reach sexual maturity at around 3 years of age.
The great stork release is a major event in the stork project and takes place in front of a large audience, a family party.
The stork project is run by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Skåne and the Skåne´s Ornithological Society (SkOF). The basis for the project’s activities is a large number of volunteers whose work is led and coordinated by an employed project manager.
Become a volunteer!
Do you want to do something for the future of Skåne? Become a sponsor or join ”Storken’s friends”. Give a truly valuable gift! More info in Swedish.
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