Great Bustard

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Great Bustard
Male Great Bustard (Otis tarda)

Male Great Bustard ( Otis tarda )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Otidiformes
Family : Bustards (Otididae)
Genre : Otis
Type : Great Bustard
Scientific name
Otis tarda
Linnaeus , 1758
Subspecies
  • Otis tarda tarda
  • Otis tarda dybowskii
Flying Great Bustards
Great bustard from a rearing program in the former Magdeburg district , 1981
Young bird of the great bustard
Gelege, Museum Wiesbaden collection

The Great Bustard ( Otis tarda ) is a bird from the family of bustards (Otididae). Weighing up to 16 kg, it is one of the heaviest birds in the world that can fly. Great bustards can live up to 20 years. After strong population losses and loss of area, the great bustard is now a very rare breeding and annual bird in Central Europe .

Appearance

The male of the great bustard usually weighs between 8 and 15 kilograms and is about 105 centimeters long. The female is usually only half the size and weighs up to 5.3 kilograms. The Great Bustard is a large, brown, piebald bird with strong legs. Older males have a feather whiskers laterally downwards on both sides, which begins at the beak and ends roughly in the middle of the neck. In the upper plumage, males and females appear the same color. During courtship, the roosters lift the white sub-feathers of the wings and tail, which are visibly "turned out". The animals can then be easily made out from a distance.

Great bustards always fly against the wind. The flying up is initiated with a few two-legged jumps.

distribution

The great bustard inhabited steppes on black earth soils and also heather and fallow areas on good soils in a large, but incoherent area between Morocco , Spain and Mongolia . Today they occur in Western and Central Europe in former heather and fallow areas that have been converted into arable land and grassland. Especially in Central Europe, it is island-like and very local, such as B. in Brandenburg. According to the classification of the IUCN , the species is considered vulnerable , i.e. endangered.

The population in Europe has increased in recent years in some countries through protective measures, although the total population can only be specified with a certain inaccuracy. In 2004 there were 35,600–38,500 animals in Europe, 37,935–47,122 animals in 2008 and 39,136–44,940 animals in 2012, and in 2012 there were 44,000 to 51,000 Great Bustards worldwide.

habitat

The great bustard's primary biotopes are steppes on black earth soils. It used to occur in Central Europe on heathland, wasteland and fallow land. The habitat of the great bustard today is arable land , the cultivated steppe and green meadows with the most diverse cultural form possible. Great bustards need an area that is as spacious and open as possible, in which there is as little disturbance as possible. Today's siting birds in Central Europe live in regions in which the snow cover remains low and is of short duration, the annual rainfall remains on average below 600 mm and high temperatures prevail in summer.

In Central Europe, the great bustard only populates low-lying areas. In Spain the species also occurs in altitudes above 1000 meters. It is important that there is enough winter food available. In Central Europe, rapeseed plays a role as a catch crop, otherwise cultivated and wild herbs. In Hungary they are found in the flat regions of the Great and Small Hungarian Plains (Alföld), in which around 200 couples live. The animals are very sensitive to disturbances and live very withdrawn.

nutrition

Adult animals eat herbs, grains, seeds, fruits, insects and small mammals. When it comes to plant nutrition, clover, pea, sainfoin , alfalfa, a number of cruciferous vegetables as well as meadow and field herbs play a role. They also eat berries, rhizomes and onions.

The young animals flee the nest and are fed insects by the female for only two weeks. The boys are independent at around four weeks and can fly at around eleven weeks. But they will stay with their mother until next spring.

Protection status and protection measures

The Great Bustard is threatened with extinction in Germany and Austria ( Red List Category 1 or Critically Endangered). It is part of Appendix I of the EU Bird Protection Directive (RL 79/409 / EEC).

During the construction of the high-speed rail line from Hanover to Berlin through the Havelländische Luch from the end of 1996, measures were taken to protect the great bustards both during the construction phase and on the completed route in order to preserve the area as a habitat for the animals.

As part of life projects of the EU, protection projects were carried out jointly in Austria , Hungary and Slovakia from 2005 to 2010 in order to increase the population again. The underground cabling of medium-voltage lines and the marking of high-voltage lines, which often become a fatal trap due to the low altitude of the birds, made a major contribution to this. In Lower Austria and Burgenland , a total of 47.4 km of above-ground medium-voltage lines were removed and 150 km of high-voltage lines were marked. As part of the project, around 3500 hectares of bustard protection areas were created as breeding and feeding habitats. So-called bustard fallows and winter grazing areas with rapeseed were created. In autumn 2010 the European Commission approved the bustard protection follow-up project to 2015 with 4.5 million euros.

In Germany, the Förderverein Großtrappenschutz eV and authorities carry out extensive protective measures in the three receiving areas, which are paid for by the federal states, districts and the EU or from donations. To improve the habitat, the grassland is being drained and the character of the open land restored. In some cases, the management dates are coordinated in the interests of great bustard protection. Farmers receive compensatory payments for the creation of special strips of forage, leaving old grass strips, forgoing fertilization and forgoing use of partial areas. An intensive fight against predators takes place with traps and rifles by local hunters. One grassland area per settlement area has been fenced in with a predator-proof fence. Intensive public relations work to increase the acceptance of the bustard protection project is ongoing. Endangered clutches are recovered and artificially hatched. The hatched young bustards are reared and later released into the wild. In recent years, young bustards have fledged almost only in fenced areas that are safe from predatory mammals. The great bustard protection is having problems with the expansion of wind energy use in the migratory corridors between the three German habitat areas and in winter habitat areas for the great bustard and the cultivation of maize that cannot be used by the great bustard.

Causes of danger

The increasing fragmentation of the breeding areas has contributed to the decline in the great bustard population, while agriculture has been intensified and mechanized at the same time, which has led to a high density of cultivation processes and thus to a disruption of the breeding birds. The upheaval from grasslands to arable land, the abandonment of three-field farming and the increasing cultivation of maize with a simultaneous decline in alfalfa have a negative effect . The intensification of agriculture has led to a denser growth of crops. Young birds can only move with greater difficulty in such dense farmland. At the same time, there is a deterioration in the soil climate near the ground, where it is cooler and more humid due to the denser position of the plants. Likewise, the supply of insects essential for rearing young is reduced as a result.

Within the protected areas, the increase in fox populations in open meadow landscapes thanks to rabies vaccination and the wild boars, the number of which has increased with the cultivation of energy crops, represent the main threat to the brood.

Hunting used to play a role in the decline in the great bustard population. Up to 1980, up to two thousand individuals were shot annually in Spain. In particular, the more conspicuous and dominant males, i.e. those who provided a large part of the offspring, were hunted. The hunt for the great bustard is now banned in Europe.

Inventory and inventory development

Due to the favorable conditions in Central Europe, this species had the largest population and widespread distribution in the 18th century. Habitat changes from the middle of the 19th century onwards then led to a population decline, during which the breeding occurrences disappeared in many places. Due to these population declines, the distribution areas in Central Europe had already split into two parts and split up at the beginning of the 20th century. One area of ​​distribution extended in northeast Central Europe over the area of ​​today's East Germany and Poland, the other was in southeast Central Europe and ran from Austria, Hungary to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In Poland the deposit dried up in 1987.

Germany

Fenced area to protect the great bustards from predators in the Fiener Bruch, in front of that a courting rooster in April 2016

The great bustard disappeared as a breeding bird from around 1850 in Hesse, from 1885 in Lower Saxony, from 1935 in Baden and from 1948 in Thuringia. In 1940 there were 4,000 individuals in the east of what is now Germany. After the Great Bustards became extinct in all other areas in Germany in the 1990s, the last areas of retreat are the protected areas of Havelländisches Luch , Belziger Landschaftswiesen and Fiener Bruch . By the mid-1990s, the populations across Germany had decreased to 81 to 98 individuals, so that complete extinction was to be feared.

After annual inventories in Brandenburg, the nature conservation authorities are now assuming a realistic chance of survival for the bird. In spring 2006, 101 great bustards were counted in Brandenburg, in the mid-1990s there were only 57 animals. From 2009 to 2010 the population decreased for the first time in years due to losses in winter: 107 adult birds were counted in 2010 - compared to 114 in 2009. Due to losses in the winter of 2010/11, the population decreased further to around 100 individuals.

Since 2012 there has been a steady increase in population size. According to the state of Brandenburg, 123 birds were counted in February 2012. They were distributed over the three receiving areas as follows: Havelländisches Luch nature reserve (Brandenburg): 51 animals, Belziger landscape meadows (Brandenburg): 39 animals, Fiener Bruch (Saxony-Anhalt / Brandenburg): 33 animals. In November 2012, 56 individuals were counted in the Havelländisches Luch, 43 in the Belziger Landschaftswiesen and 46 in the Fiener Bruch. The population was thus 145 animals. In March 2014 there were around 165 Great Bustards across Germany. The annual population survey at the end of winter in February 2015 counted 197 individuals. In March, for the first time in years, an animal was spotted well outside the three stock areas near the city of Ueckermünde in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . In the following year 2016, the number of Great Bustards was 232 individuals, which means an increase of 17.8% compared to the previous year. 88 Great Bustards were counted in the Havelländisches Luch and 72 each in the Belziger Landschaftswiesen and in the Fiener Bruch.

Austria

In Austria the population decreased from about 700 animals in the middle of the 20th century to about 60 towards the end of the century. Since 1995, around 5300 hectares of special bustard protection areas have been created as part of the ÖPUL agri-environmental program . In 2005 around 90 specimens were counted in the area of ​​the Parndorfer Platte and in Heideboden, in 2011 already around 150. In the winter of 2011/12 335 Great Bustards were counted in this area. For 2016, a population of 495 Great Bustards was determined in Austria.

Czech Republic

According to modern records, the Great Bustard has been proven in South Moravia since 1904. Regular surveys of the population began in the early 1970s, initially establishing a stable population of 31 to 37 specimens. The sex ratio was about one rooster for two hens. The largest inventory was recorded in 1982 with 44 copies. After an agricultural field airfield was established in the bustard's wintering area at the beginning of 1983 , the population was torn apart. Thereafter, as a result of the intensification of agricultural production, their number steadily declined, and several copies of high-voltage lines perished. After 1996 there was no known nesting site for the great bustard in the Czech Republic . Since then, individual or multiple specimens of the bird have been spotted in Okres Znojmo , which probably came from the area around Retz in Austria. The Austrian bustard protection program also led to the return of the bird to its main distribution area in South Moravia. In 2006, a nesting site for the great bustard in the Czech Republic, where three young birds were reared, was found again for the first time near Morašice .

Holdings in the rest of the distribution area

Distribution area of ​​the great bustard:
  • Breeding areas
  • Year-round occurrence
  • migration
  • Wintering areas
    • Great bustard illustration

    The Central European distribution focus is Hungary with 1500 to 1600 individuals (as of 2016). The total Central European population was estimated at 1250 to 1450 individuals in 2005. Fortunately, the population grew to 2,700 individuals by 2016. In 2005, there were 31,000 to 36,000 individuals across Europe, and around 38,000 to 45,000 in 2016. European centers of distribution are Russia with 5000 to 6000 individuals and Spain with more than half of the world population, where 30,000 individuals still live. A main distribution area there is the Extremadura .

    Other occurrences of Otis tarda tarda are in Portugal (1400), Ukraine (550), Slovakia (390) and Morocco (50). In Great Britain, where this species disappeared since 1832, a reintroduction project has been underway in the Salisbury Plain area since 1998 . The attempt has so far not been promising because the animals hatched from Russian eggs and released as young birds have inherited the migratory instinct and most of them have not been able to make the flight to the French wintering quarters and back. Since only a little more than ten birds have survived after nine years of being released into the wild, the importation of Great Bustard eggs from Russia ended in 2012. For resettlement, individuals from other countries of origin who have no migration instinct are now to be found.

    The eastern subspecies Otis tarda dybowskii can still be found in Mongolia (100–500 (?)) And southern Russia (100–200 (?)).

    literature

    • Horst Siewert : The Great Bustard's courtship. Neumann, Berlin 1939. Dissertation , FH Eberswalde, 1939 (university publication ; from: Zeitschrift für Jagdkunde. Vol. 1, no.1 / 2, pp. 7-35; with 16 plates based on nature photographs and 5 text drawings by the author).
    • Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel and Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds. Aula-Verlag Wiebelsheim, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 .

    Web links

    Commons : Great Bustard ( Otis tarda )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
    Wiktionary: Great Bustard  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ http://www.freilandoekologie.de/trappen.html
    2. ↑ Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel and Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds. Aula-Verlag Wiebelsheim, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 384–386.
    3. ↑ The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Otis tarda , 2017.
    4. ↑ great bustards Distribution and population numbers International Technical Office for Biology Mag. Rainer Raab, January 16, 2018
    5. ↑ Bauer et al., P. 386.
    6. ↑ Christoph Grüneberg, Hans-Günther Bauer, Heiko Haupt, Ommo Hüppop, Torsten Ryslavy, Peter Südbeck: Red List of Germany's Breeding Birds , 5 version . In: German Council for Bird Protection (Hrsg.): Reports on bird protection . tape 52 , November 30, 2015.
    7. ↑ 75,000 euros for the protection of the great bustard Stephan Pernkopf , May 18, 2011, accessed on June 1, 2011
    8. ^ Rainer Raab, Alois Lang: Sensible heavyweight - Great Bustards between Danube and Lake Neusiedl . National Park No. 155, 1/2012: 18–20.
    9. ↑ Marcus Borchert, Henrik Watzke: The Great Bustard Protection Project in Fiener Bruch . The falcon, 64: 34–37.
    10. ↑ a b Bauer et al., P. 385.
    11. ↑ birdnet ( memento of the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Märkische Allgemeine from January 23, 2009, accessed June 1, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.birdnet-cms.de
    12. ↑ Märkische Oderzeitung, 25./26. November 2006, p. 14.
    13. ↑ http://www.abendblatt.de/ratgeber/wissen/article1010617/Aufwind-fuer-ein-Schwergewicht.html
    14. ↑ birdnet: German Great Bustards with great winter losses ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 25, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.birdnet-cms.de
    15. ↑ Inquiry to the Federal Government “Protection of the Great Bustard”, printed matter 17/10191 (PDF; 101 kB) of June 28, 2012
    16. ↑ Förderverein Großtrappenschutz eV: Stock estimate autumn 2012 , accessed September 6, 2013
    17. ↑ predation . Accessed April 24, 2015.
    18. ↑ Current inventory . Accessed April 24, 2015.
    19. ↑ Weird fat bird stranded . Published on March 17th, 2015 in Nordkurier . Accessed April 24, 2015.
    20. ↑ 2016: 232 Great Bustards in Germany. Förderverein Großtrappenschutz eV, 2016, accessed on April 3, 2016 .
    21. ↑ Lebensministerium.at: The number of bustards in Northern Burgenland has almost quadrupled ( memento of the original from September 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 6, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lebensministerium.at
    22. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cso.cz
    23. ↑ Bauer et al., P. 384 and p. 385.
    24. ↑ Great Bustard - Otis tarda: Distribution and existence , accessed on July 26, 2017.
    25. ↑ Bauer et al., P. 384.
    26. ^ Förderverein Großtrappenschutz eV: Visiting Great Britain 2013 , accessed September 6, 2013