The Flight of Life

For earth- and country-bound creatures like us a trip from Eastern Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa relying on our strength alone might seem one of unimaginable difficulties. For a bird that has been taking this trip for generations it is not necessarily so. Or at least it shouldn't be. Probably more out ignorance than of jealousy we have managed to make the trip for migratory birds harder. A new study by LOB funded by Latvian Environmental Protection Fund and Max Plank Institute for Ornithology will follow eight Black Stork females from the nests where they hatched to the wintering areas and, hopefully, back.

It is estimated that since early 1990s the breeding population of Black Storks in Latvia has declined by half. One of the obvious and for now the only scientifically proven reason for this is the intensification of forestry (degradation of habitat, disturbance etc.). However, there are other potential dangers for the species, and not all of them are here in Latvia. The mission of these eight Black Storks will be to shed more light on the threats the species has to face.

The TV channel LNT that supports this project has called it "The Flight of Life". Though less hopeful and probably less appealing to public but much more appropriate name would be "The Flight of Death". It is no accident that female Black Storks have been chosen for the study. Our current data show that at the age of more than 100 days the proportion of females in the population is 20% instead of 50% it should be. If this is true, it is alarming news for the Black Stork population and even more so for the eight storks that are followed on their way to Africa. Chances of their safe arrival home are actually rather slim.

One of the potential dangers that lurks somewhere in Africa (but probably not only there) we do know but haven't proven the impact on the population yet is DDT. This notorious insecticide has been banned in Europe for several decades, and when you mention it to someone in Latvia now the response you usually get is: "What is DDT?" But it is still being used in Africa. We don't know where they get it, we have pretty good notion on how, but anyway Black Storks contract DDT poisoning. All of the unhatched eggs tested for DDT and the products of its decomposition in recent years have been positive.

We hope that Guste, Dace, Dora, Mellene, Agnese, Tince, Santa and Oga will return to Latvia safely and with some answers. Their journey has just begun. Let's allow ourselves a moment of optimism and naiveté and hope it will be a flight of life after all. Those wishing to follow their trip can look them up in Movebank.