Home to the skylark - The Velux Foundations

Focused bird protection
to save vulnerable
species
BY TINE STAMPE, HENNING HELDBJERG AND MICHAEL BORCH GRELL Over the last 36 years, the Danish Ornithological Society has carried out a Adult Montagu’s harrier be-
great many surveillance projects which now constitute a solid body of sciing tagged with a satellite
Tine Stampe (born 1963) holds an MA in
communication studies, and has worked
In 2011, the VILLUM FOUNDATION donated DKK
4,983,000 to the Danish Ornithological Society’s proentific
data on the state of the population of all breeding birds in Denmark.
These data reveal the stark reality that the populations of a large number of
transmitter in Southwest Jutland
(2010). Photo: Michael
Grell
as a public relations officer for the Danish ject ‘Focused Bird Protection’. The project is designed
breeding birds are in rapid decline. Numerous international reports confirm
Ornithological Society for seven years.
Henning Heldbjerg (born 1966) is a bio­
logist and project manager with the Dan­
ish Ornithological Society. He is the senior
manager of PFF, the project for focused
bird protection.
Michael Borch Grell (born 1961) has led
the Danish Ornithological Society’s Natu­
ral Science Department since 2003, which
deals with the Society’s scientific, nature
policy and international nature conserva­
tion work.
to increase the breeding population of the common
merganser, red kite, white-tailed eagle, Montagu’s har-
rier, peregrine falcon, Kentish plover, little owl and
Tengmalm’s owl. These species make up a carefully
selected group of vulnerable and threatened breeding
birds in Denmark. There is a great need to develop fo-
cused methods for protecting individual species in the
interests of maintaining a high level of biodiversity in
Denmark. Focused Bird Protection will employ GPS
transmitters and webcams to map the birds’ foraging
areas and their production of chicks. In the future,
these methods will be in high demand among Danish
local authorities and among private and public sector
nature management bodies once EU nature conserva-
tion requirements come to be implemented.
that the same is true of biodiversity as a whole in Denmark (and in Europe),
and in many cases, extensive political intervention and management of bird
habitats is required to reverse this adverse trend.
The Danish Ornithological Society however holds that the populations of a
small group of bird species, given the existing pressure on natural habitats,
can only be boosted by means of a new type of measure consisting of a
targeted intervention for a single, specific species. We call this ‘focused bird
protection’. Many of our most vulnerable and threatened species are de-
pendent on specific protection and surveillance at nesting and foraging sites.
There is a pressing need for more precise information as to the cause of the
decline in the populations, and what it would take to reverse the situation.
The Focused Bird Protection project will take the Danish Ornithologi-
cal Society’s nature protection to a whole new level. We will be able to
make use of the huge volume of existing data and try out different protec-
tion methods directly on the affected species. This will enable us to record
Photo: Justin Carr
122 FOCUSED BIRD PROTECTION VILLUM FOUNDATION 123
ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY