Tunis: The Association ‘Les Amis des Oiseaux’ (AAO/BirdLife Tunisia) and its partners will launch on June 3 the national census of the White Stork breeding population in Tunisia during an information and training workshop at the National Genebank of Tunisia in Tunis.
This edition of the census, called ‘TunStorkCensus2024’, will allow expert observers and citizens alike to participate in the census by reporting stork nests and their occupants to the AAO/Birdlife Tunisia via a digital platform.
The aim is also to collect relevant data on the location of nests and certain risks, such as electrocution or the presence of plastic in nests, in order to help protect this heritage species.
This monitoring is part of the International White Stork Census, in which Tunisia has already participated in 1998/99, 2004 and 2014/15. It is supported by a number of national institutions and organisations, including the Ministries of Environment and Youth, the General Directorate of Forests and local NGOs.
Financial support i
s provided by the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABI, Birdlife’s partner in Germany), WWF North Africa, the consultancy firm ‘Environnemental Assessment and Management’ and the ‘Société Hôtelière et Touristique du Nord-Ouest’.
This support made it possible to set up the digital platform, train observers and provide the logistics for a 10-day field mission to visit all the governorates with stork nests.
The last international White Stork decennial census, in 2014/15, revealed a global population of 265,000 to 280,000 nesting pairs in Eurasia and North Africa.
At that time, the population in Western Europe and North Africa increased by an average of 38% compared to the previous year.
Tunisia has also seen a marked increase in the species. Since 1999, when 358 occupied nests were counted, there were more than 1,000 breeding pairs in 2014/15.
In 2022, the ‘Etude d’élaboration de la liste rouge des espèces menacées en Tunisie: Avifaune et Flore’, co
ordinated by the Ministry of the Environment, estimated the Tunisian White Stork population at 1,000-1,200 pairs or 2,000-2,400 adult birds.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse