Nigel (booby)

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Mana Island
An Australian booby - not Nigel

Nigel (died late January 2018 on Mana Island ) was an Australian booby who became known as the "loneliest sea bird in the world".

Nigel became known because he vied for a concrete booby dummy for many years. The events on Mana Island near New Zealand around Nigel's unsuccessful attempts to win the structure out of concrete could be followed live. Nigel also made the species protection program known, which led to the fact that the gannet dummies were even set up.

background

In the 1990s, conservationists began to build 80 concrete boobies on the island to encourage real boobies to settle on the island. The project on Mana Island is part of a larger project by the New Zealand Ministry of Environment, the local tribes and the environmentalists of the Friends of Mana to give seabirds, and especially boobies, more distribution areas in New Zealand. In the second step, the excretions of the seabirds should ensure that there are more nutrients for plants and insects on the island and that these colonize again.

Among other things, this should lead to the further spread of species that have been severely decimated by the introduction of invasive European animals. Mana Island itself was used for agriculture between 1820 and 1980 but is free of invasive species. For example, rats have never settled on the island. In an elaborate program, 500,000 native trees were planted, as well as other plants and native animals, in order to create a pre-European status.

The environmentalists painted the birds' beaks gray, the neck yellow, the wing tips black and the plumage white. In addition, they played sounds from real boobies over loudspeakers. After two boobies settled on the island on the first day of the project, it looked like a success. However, the birds flew away the following day and the project seemed to fail. Nigel landed on the island a few years before 2018. There is disagreement about the exact year.

Nigel and the concrete birds

Nigel immediately took a liking to one of the concrete dummies and spent many months promoting it. He even built a nest of algae and twigs next to the dummy.

After Nigel had been alone on the island for several years and continued to campaign in vain for the concrete dummy, the environmentalists made renewed efforts in December 2017 to attract more boobies. They repainted the dummies and placed them in more visible places. They also repositioned the loudspeakers so that the bird cries continued to reach across the water. In December 2017, more Australian boobies came to the island for the first time and Nigel was no longer alone. Within ten days of the measures, three new boobies settled, so that the population quadrupled. While the other birds, according to the environmentalists, were largely induced to stay on the island by the presence of a real bird - Nigel - Nigel avoided the other birds and continued to take care of "his" dummy. In the week leading up to February 1, ranger Chris Bell found the dead booby on Mana Island right next to the dummy.

Effects

Nigel's death was noticed worldwide. In addition to the New Zealand media, the NZZ reported on the "bird who loved a cinder block", the mirror on the "loneliest bird in the world" and the ORF on "New Zealand's loneliest booby."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Yonette Joseph: The Life and Death of Nigel, the World's Loneliest Seabird . In: The New York Times . February 4, 2018, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 6, 2018]).
  2. ↑ a b c Virginia Fallon: The wrong ending: Nigel the lonely gannet found dead beside his concrete love. In: Stuff.co.nz. February 1, 2018, accessed February 6, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Esther Widmen: Nigel, the bird who loved a cinder block, is dead | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 2, 2018, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed February 6, 2018]).
  4. ↑ New Zealand: Conservationists mourn the "loneliest bird in the world" . In: Spiegel Online . February 6, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed February 6, 2018]).
  5. ↑ New Zealand's lone booby Nigel dead . In: news.ORF.at . February 2, 2018 ( orf.at [accessed February 6, 2018]).