Soaring migratory bird deaths in Egypt

Soaring migratory birds glide between areas of rising hot air to aid their long-distance passage. This method, which cannot be used over large water bodies or high mountains, limits the potential routes and concentrates birds into vulnerable corridors. Egypt is at a critical geographic bottleneck for soaring migratory birds, and at the time of the recent deaths thousands of birds were passing through the country.

27 lesser spotted eagles dead
In total, local bird watchers found 27 Lesser Spotted Eagles and over 30 White Storks dead near a water treatment plant in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. In addition, BirdLife received reports of a grounded European Honey-buzzard and a number of dead 'wader' species.

"We don't know the exact causes of these deaths", said Hala Barakat, President of Nature Conservation Egypt (BirdLife in Egypt). "These birds face a number of different threats such poisoning, hunting, habitat-loss and direct collisions with structures such as wind-farms and power-lines".

"BirdLife's Migratory Soaring Birds project aims to address these threats. We will be working with these key economic sectors to better understand the underlying causes of the threats to soaring birds, and develop best practice guidelines", commented Dr Jonathan Barnard - BirdLife's Programme and Projects Manager. This will be achieved through regional awareness-raising and training, combined with six pilot projects in partnership with the key stakeholders across the Middle East and northeast Africa.

"Following lessons learned from our pilot projects, our aim is to set up an accreditation scheme to encourage companies to adopt a 'Soaring Bird friendly' approach to their work", noted Dr Barnard.

The Soaring Migratory Birds project will be launched early in 2009. It will be executed by BirdLife International in collaboration with Partners and government agencies in Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The project is funded through the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme.

Birdlife International