Plan d'Action pour la conservation des espèces d'oiseaux inscrites ...

Current factors causing loss or decline
Habitat alterations at breeding sites; changes in fishing practices and
competition mainly with the Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans;
egg collection and human persecution and disturbance. The
importance of depletion of food resources, chemical pollution and
spills as threats and limiting factors are not fully understood.
Status under international instruments
Appendix II - Convention on the Conservation of European
Wildlife and Natural Habitats (1979).
Appendix I & II -Convention on the Conservation of Migratory
Species of Wild Animals (1979).
Annex I - European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild
Birds (79/409/EEC/1979).
European Union Regulation laying down certain technical
measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the
Mediterranean (1626/94 (EC) 1994).
Listed in the AEWA Action Plan (Column A Category 1a/3a).
Current Action Plans
International Action Plan for Audouin’s Gull Larus audouinii
prepared by BirdLife International on behalf of the European
Commission (March 1996).
Globally threatened birds in Europe Action Plans. Council of
Europe – BirdLife International –EU Life-Nature (1996).
Action Plan to restore the Audouin’s Gull Larus audouinii by
Government Committee of Palm Islands Nature Reserve in Lebanon.
Official Working Group in Spain (Ministry of Environment) to review
status and propose conservation actions for Larus audouinii.
Action Plan objectives and target
To maintain a healthy breeding population and increase the
number of colonies.
Proposed action
- Inventory and map critical habitats supporting the colonies,
particularly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean.
- Confer strictly protected status on the species.
- Prohibit all types of disturbance to breeding colonies, including
the taking of eggs and young.
- Monitor and warden colonies under threat.
- Create SPAs where breeding colonies exist.
- Plan, regulate and/or manage activities and processes of coastal
and infrastructure development near to known colonies.
- Control or eradicate invasive competitive species and terrestrial
mammals at colonies.
- Prevent oil spills and chemical pollution of the sea.
- Identify areas at sea important for the species.
- Develop an Action Plan to reduce mortality at sea especially
from by-catch.
30
«Audouin’s Gull is one of
the very few genuinely
pelagic gulls, that is to
say that it spends the
greater part of its time at
sea, and only comes to
land to nest on a small
number of
Mediterranean islands.»
© T. GAULTIER