Archive

AWKWARD BUSTARDS

11/12/2017

Great bustards Otis tarda Linnaeus 1758 were hunted to extinction in Britain by the middle of the nineteenth century. In 2004, though, reintroduction with Russian birds by a charity, The Great Bustard Group, began with the objective of establishing a self-sustaining population on Salisbury Plain. It has been an uphill and controversial task, as explained in a recent article in New Scientist (2 December 2017). There were difficulties obtaining an import licence, followed by a lack of money as major conservation groups were not initially supportive until the RSPB rallied to the cause in 2010 so that, with Natural England, the University of Bath and others, €1million was obtained as an EU grant.

All kinds of awkwardness arose: there have been the usual, perhaps inevitable, conflicts between practical field conservation work, personalities, funding and the need to publish scientific papers. There were also questions about whether Russian or Spanish stock was genetically the closer to the extinct British birds (the latter, it seems) and the project all but collapsed. Changes involving diet (more vegetarian, lower invertebrate content), less human–chick contact, earlier release and more exercise were made, and the devices used for tracking were redesigned to drop off six months from release.  Survivorship improved so that half the birds were remaining alive by 2014/15, making a population, with recent releases, of about seventy, enough for the species’ social behaviour to develop and endure – great bustards live in separate male and female flocks outside the breeding season. That wild chicks were seen was a great boost to confidence.

The Life+ funded project has now ended but the conservation efforts continue. Whether the population can attain and maintain self-sustainability remains moot, and will largely depend on the survival and successful breeding of the females as they become mature. Much has been learned about re-introducing these challenging birds to the wild, and praise is due to the determination of the conservationists involved in the face of many obstacles. It would be wonderful to have large numbers of great bustards on Salisbury Plain again, awkward bustards though they may be!.