EAZA Hornbill Management and Husbandry Guidelines

Table 1.B
1) Mean temperature
range (ºC) in January
Location zone in Europe – up to Moscow
-15 – -10 Zone east of Moscow
-10 – -5 Zone east of Sweden, Poland and Moldavia up to "-15 – -10" range
-5 – 0 Zone east of the Netherlands, France, Italy and north of Greece. Up to " -10 –
-5" range. Also coastal parts of Norway and southern part of Sweden.
0 – 5 UK, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Benelux, France (except west coast). Inland of
Spain, Italy and Turkey.
5 – 10 Coastal areas of Ireland, France, Spain and Italy. Greek Islands, Cyprus,
Portugal, Sicily, Corsica.
>10 South of 45 º northern latitude
2) Mean temperature Location range in Europe - up to Moscow
range (ºC) in July
10 – 15 Zone north of mid Ireland and mid Sweden
15 - 17.5 Zone north of Paris, Copenhagen and Helsinki, up to "10 - 15" range.
17.5 – 20 North of 43º northern latitude, up to "17.5 - 20" range
20 – 25 Between 37º and 43º northern latitude
>25 South of 37º northern latitude
3) Yearly Temperature Location range in Europe - up to Moscow
variance in ºC
10 – 15 UK, Ireland, Scotland, western part of France, Portugal, southern part of Spain
15 – 20 Zone east of Amsterdam and Madrid, up to "20 - 40" zone. Greece, Norway
20 – 40 Zone east of Norway-Berlin. And north and east of Greece
4.3 Light regime
Light regime is relatively constant in natural habitats of hornbills (mainly 30°N to 30° S
latitude) compared to light regimes in most of Europe (Table 2). While there is no
evidence that photoperiod influences hornbill breeding results, inappropriate light cycles
could be a factor in the poor breeding results of captive hornbills in northern Europe. It is
known that some tropical birds can respond to very small changes in the photoperiod (e.g.
17 minutes) with dramatic increases in reproductive activity as measured by gonadal
growth (Hau et al., 1997). A helpful web-site for calculating the natural photoperiod
cycle of any particular species is: http://www.saunalahti.fi/%7ejjlammi/sun.php3
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