2012 Results. English summary

Winter roosting places of Red Kite in Navarra 2012: evolution demography, characterization and use. English summary.

Navarra is a region of around 10.000 km² located in the northern part of Spain, along the Spanish/French border, and to the south of the Pyrenees. The navarran population of Red Kites was first thoroughly monitored twice in the 90’s during the 92/93 and 93/94 wintering seasons and then continuously counted in the 2000’s for the last 12 winter seasons.

The results of the last wintering season are presented in this report. The average of the population estimate for the Navarran population for the 14 census done is 2.111. The total count for the 2011/2012 wintering period was 1.449, down from the 1.724 previous record representing 16 % less birds. This value also represents 28 % less than the average census count. It also only represents 57 % of the maximum value obtained in 05/06 with 2.667 individuals.

As a summary, in a few words, the Navarran wintering population of Red kite shows a worrying decreasing tendency since maximum 2005/2006

The Navarran wintering population of Red kite this year was distributed among 18 roosting areas, each one having a variable number of roosting places. The complete south of the region was not collecting nearly any birds after the extinguishing of the roosting places of the Ribera and the prior disappearing of the Zona Media. This is a fact that happens for the first time since the beginning of this monitoring program.

Up to date 14 Red kites have been tagged in Navarra by Jesús Mari Lekuona team and these birds have been found in Spain (Burgos, Huesca, León) and France, as well as locally. One bird was found dead in León and the source reasons for the dying are being investigated. We continued our co-operation with European Research Teams spotting foreign visitor birds from France and Germany and also helping a German group to shot a video on the wintering habits of the species.

This population seems to be very dependent on the public dumping areas and this is the potential reason for the significant changes observed in the distribution of the kites inside the region in the last few winters when several dumping areas were closed and dumping activities concentrated in a few places.

Year	Count	Population estimate
1993	2.181	2.290
1994	2.147	2.254
2001	2.142	2.249
2002	2.026	2.229
2003	1.673	2.008
2004	2.522	2.522
2005	2.137	2.244
2006	2.615	2.667
2007	2.175	2.240
2008	1.894	1.951
2009	1.866	1.959
2010	1.536	1.613
2011	1.724	1.810
2012	1.449	1.521
Average	2.006	2.111

Support and collaboration

This census and report was sponsored by the Government of Navarre under the NECROPIR project Project nr. EFA 130/09. Habitat and Wildlife Guards Departments supported this census. Volunteers from the Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales Gorosti also contributed.

Details of the this census and the complete monitoring program can be found in

The blog of the species in the region http://milano-real.blogspot.com.es/

And Gorosti’s webpage http://sites.google.com/site/scngorosti/Home/secciones/seccion-de-zoologia/ornitologia/proyecto-milano-real

Addedum. Proposal of Conservation Measures

Last year, together with the annual report, our Society recommended a number of conservation measures to our regional government which are summarized below. The implementation of these recommendations is particularly urgent because in February this year the Spanish Government has declared the Red Kite in Spain in the highest level of thread: in danger of extinction.

Proposed conservation actions:

Species monitoring. Both as wintering and breeding species.

Marking activities. Proposal to keep on the marking of individuals in order to better understand the movements of them, the land use and the potential threads to the species.

Compiling of casualties. The Gorosti Society has compiled all available (to us) animal casualties for the species, particularly for the last 5 years. This shows a dead toll of 18 red kites for that period. The potential root-causes for those are envisioned and identified, not a big surprise, as poisoning and wind-farms. The creation of a database with this information at national and international level is proposed.

A national and international cooperation is also proposed for the compilation of sightings of marked animals as well as for synchronized censuses.

The creation of special protection and monitoring areas together with supplementary feed areas is proposed. One of those was already in use this winter. This action will allow to establish kites to low risk areas and this, together with the additional feed, will contribute to increase the over-winter survival of the species

Socialization and economic sustainability of the conservation of the species. A number of actions are proposed.

The support to volunteer activities for the monitorization of the species.

The publication of a summary to be distributed locally in the areas where the species is present.

The creation of observatories of the species that could on the one hand help monitoring the species and on the other create the complicity and the adhesion of local people.