Stork Campaign - Objetives

The white stork is one of the better known and more loved species among our people because of their singular shape and thanks to the fact that storks have always chosen human buildings to place their nests. As a result they belong to our culture and are present in tales, songs and legends.

White stork populations in Spain, the same as in the case of other protected species, have gone through a difficult situation in the last few years, some of them being in danger of extinction, mainly due to human reasons.

As workers for the study and protection of this emblematic bird, we explained the decrease of its population, among other reasons, by the loss of its feeding habitat and by the elimination of its voluminous nests. The nests were taken away by the owners of the buildings in which they were placed -mainly churches and state buildings- due to the damages caused on roofs, pipes and facades.

That’s why, people interested in recovering the white stork worked mainly in their feeding areas and in making artificial nests. In the last few years the population of white stork has risen drastically, being nowadays in no danger.

Now the population remains established, however there are still problems to solve. The large number of storks is causing new problems in buildings. Therefore we keep on working with the white stork in order to avoid a negative reaction from the people who have been affected. This negative reaction would go against white storks.

However, even if stork populations have experienced a spectacular growth, there are still problems which can affect the recovering of this species and which, if not eliminated or minimized, can put their populations at risk again. The main problems affecting storks are the following: balingropes which they take to their nests and affect their chicks which accidentally tie their legs and necks around them; electric laying in which they die from electric shocks and from crashing into them; the ingestion of things which they pick up from the rubbish dumps.

In the case of electric laying and in order to avoid new cases of electric shocks, we are asking companies, sometimes getting positive response, to perform some changes in the problematic towers where stork deaths occur. With the aim of avoiding damage by baling ropes, we are developing an informative campaign in which we ask farmers and stock-breeders not to leave these ropes in the fields but to deposit them in the village container.

In order to gain people’s sensitivity we perform several activities aiming at informing about storks and their problems. Every year we celebrate a welcome to storks in Tudela and Pamplona and all villages which ask for it. During  this activity we hand over pedagogical material and put at the audience’s disposal optic tools for the observation of storks. For this kind of activity, and for other activities involving environmental education related to storks, we have school books, posters, leaflets and pedagogical panels.