130925-studie-wildlife-comeback-in-europe

Country No. of breeding pairs Trend %
Albania 3 +
Austria 395 +
Belarus 21,362 + 10
Belgium 50 +
Bosnia and Herzegovina 40 −
Bulgaria 4,826 + 2
Croatia 1,700 + 1
Czech Republic 814 +
Denmark 3 −
Estonia 4,500 + 2
France 975 +
Germany 4,482 + 2
Greece 2,157 + 1
Hungary 5,200 + 2
Italy 50 +
Latvia 10,600 Stable 5
Lithuania 13,000 + 6
FYRO Macedonia 500 [20] Stable
Moldova 491 [20] Stable
Netherlands 562 +
Poland 52,500 + 24
Portugal 7,685 + 3
Romania 5,500 + 2
Russia 10,200 + 5
Serbia 1,080 [20] +
Slovakia 1,331 + 1
Slovenia 240 +
Spain 33,217 + 15
Sweden 29 +
Switzerland 198 +
Ukraine 30,000 + 14
Table 2.
White stork
population estimates
in Europe according
to the 2004/2005
International White
Stork Census [6] ,
indicating those
countries that hold
at least 1% of the
European population.
is evidence that the White stork breeding distribution
included Italy until the 16th century, with
recolonisation recorded from 1959–60 [23] .
White stork distribution in Europe increased
by 28% between 1949 and 2012 (Figure 2), with
substantial expansion occurring in Iberia and
France. Parts of Italy and France were recolonised
by the species, as well as Belgium, Switzerland and
Sweden – countries from which the White stork
had become extinct in the past. Areas outside
the historic range have also been colonised. In
particular, an eastward expansion is apparent in
the eastern part of the distribution in Ukraine and
Russia [24, 25] .
Major threats
One of the major reasons for the decline of the
western White stork population before 1984 was
the prolonged drought during 1968–1984 in the
western Sahel region, where this population
winters [4] . The drought resulted in poor food availability
in the wintering areas, and this has been
shown to affect the breeding populations of White
storks [14] . The climate in the eastern Sahel has also
been shown to have a significant impact on the
eastern population, as migrating birds stopover
in this region to replenish their reserves, and
droughts in the mid-1980s had negative effects on
the eastern White stork population [28] .
Food resources for White storks in their African
wintering grounds are also negatively affected by
overgrazing and the excessive use of pesticides [5] .
Reduced food supplies are one of the major threats
to White stork populations [4] , as poor feeding
conditions result in delayed migration and poor
productivity [29, 30] .
Declines in food availability are also important
threats in the European breeding grounds. In
western Europe, agricultural intensification and
wetland drainage reduced food resources and were
major contributing factors to the declines in the
western White stork breeding population [5, 6] . The
recent accession of Central and Eastern European
countries to the EU will result in changes in
agricultural practices, which could affect eastern
White stork populations [6] .
White storks are vulnerable to collision with and
electrocution by overhead power lines, which were
extended in Europe from the 1950s. The effects of
this source of mortality may be localised [5, 31] , but
there is evidence that they may be severe enough
to result in population-level effects [32–35] .
It has been suggested that hunting of the
species during the 1800s limited its distribution,
e.g. in France [13] and Greece [22] . However, thanks
to its special status in human culture, the White
stork has benefitted from low levels of persecution
across its breeding range in Europe [e.g. 36],
although hunting during migration [37, 38] and in the
wintering areas [2, 3, 39] is an ongoing threat.
Drivers of recovery
The large increase in White stork populations in
Iberia since the mid-1980s partly reflects climatic
changes in the wintering range, with less severe
drought periods in West Africa [4, 6] . Climate change
could also potentially be contributing to the
ongoing eastward expansion of the White stork
breeding distribution [6] .
The increase in eastern populations since
1984 may be due to improved feeding conditions
as a result of the extensification of farming
practices that followed the collapse of socialist
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