08.06.2006

Adoption of Stork Chicks

At two stork eyries of the surrounding district of Vetschau one parent stork has suffered an accident. While at one eyrie the parent stork cares for the already large young ones, they are still so little at the other that the parent stork does not fly away to collect fodder. Here we want to intervene and remove the young ones and possibly "slip them under" another stork couple as adoptive chicks. This is the best method to avoid the young storks to become attached to human beings and allow the parent storks to acquaint them with stork behaviour. In 85% of cases the alien storks are accepted. Still a risk remains, because some parent storks react fiercely and throw the alien chick our of the nest. On Friday at 10:00 a.m. we want to put one chick into the eyrie at Vetschau initially, watch what happens, and then, possibly, set a second chick into the eyrie.

The concerns continue: Today, a stork chick was brought to us which had been thrown out of a nest. Evidently it had survived The fall without injuries. Now we have more stork chicks than vacancies for adoptions! So, what do we do now? Tomorrow morning The stork chicks will be brought to us. Depending on The size, we will decide which chick will be placed first. The level of development between it and Meto must not be too high!

The remaining chicks be brought to Loburg and The Stork Sanctuary. There Christoph Kaatz can care for them The best and also undertake a stork adoption. Heike and Frank Arendholz ("Woody") have offered to transport them to Loburg. I find this to be really neat! The whole thing has already been voted upon and authorized by The stork protectors and The wildlife protection authority.

Winfried Boehmer
NABU-Project Leader

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