Raised the alarm in Turin: Waldrapp Oskar is now back in Austria
The waldrapp Oskar, a four-year-old migratory bird that got lost on the flight from Austria to Italy and landed in the Turin area at the beginning of April, has returned to Austria. The goose-sized black bird with the long beak had stopped flying towards Tuscany and found shelter in a factory in Turin, where it had established itself. Here he had set up for problems because he often triggered the alarm system at night.
The Upper Austrian team that looked after Oskar on his flight to Italy contacted a stork center near Turin and thanks to cooperation with local bird protection organizations Oskar was able to return to Austria by car.
He was accompanied by two volunteers from a Turin bird protection association, local media reported. Oskar had already flown to Italy in the past few years. Its migration route is tracked by the Austrian Waldrapp team via GPS.
The project “Waldrapteam”
The northern bald ibis are part of a zoological research project involving Austria, Germany and Italy. As early as 2007, the first birds born in Austrian zoos and raised by Upper Austrian researchers started their long journey to Italy. In order to show the young animals the routes for their autumn flight south, they are guided by biologists with light aircraft.
The “Waldrapteam” project has been running since 2002. The aim is to resettle the ibises, which belong to the ibis family, in the Alpine region after around 350 years of absence. Without this migration south, they would not survive the winter. The waldrapp chicks that hatch in zoos and wildlife parks do not know the flight route to their winter quarters. Therefore, the human foster mothers have to fly them the way to Tuscany in an ultralight aircraft. The bald bald ibis lived in the Alps and the Mediterranean until the 17th century. Illegal hunting is the main cause, accounting for three quarters of deaths.