RTL Today – Nonsense, climate change helps increase the number of white storks in Portugal

Above a flowering meadow in southern Portugal, three white stork nestlings click their beaks, adding to the chorus of a thriving stork population that has settled in the country year-round.

Traditionally, the long-legged birds migrated south from Europe in the fall to spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa before returning to breed in the spring.

But abundant food from landfills, combined with warmer weather due to climate change, has meant that the vast majority of breeding-age storks in Portugal have skipped this arduous journey and stayed put all year.

In the spring and summer, they often nest on chimneys or utility poles, which have helped make humans safer for them.

White storks were not considered an endangered species in Portugal until the turn of the century.

Fortunately, the number of breeding pairs has nearly doubled in the past decade, from about 12,000 pairs a decade ago to about 20,000 pairs today, according to scientific estimates.

“They look good! Let’s hope there is enough food for all three chicks,” said Ines Catry, a biologist at the University of Porto’s Research Center for Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO).

After checking, weighing and measuring them, she carefully placed the chicks in a cloth bag and used a ladder to hoist them back into their nest atop an old tree trunk near the town of Aljustrel.

For the past six years, CIBIO scientists have been monitoring the behavior of a group of Storks, thanks to small satellite tags attached to their backs.

– ‘Depending on waste’ –

One of the birds, named Alvalade, has built a nest on top of a post along a side road in this region of the Alentejo, an endlessly flat landscape dotted with cork oaks and olive trees.

Alvalade travels about 2,500 kilometers each year to reach Senegal in West Africa, returning to Portugal to breed in the spring and summer.

But this stork’s behavior is now the exception.

About 80 percent of Portugal’s white storks reside permanently in the country, avoiding the dangers associated with migration, Catry says.

Young storks still follow the instinct to fly to Africa for the winter, but “over time they stop migrating,” she said. Older breeding birds usually stay in place.

The change in migration habits is partly related to climate change and the availability of food in Portugal all year round.

They have an abundant supply of food sourced from Portuguese landfills all year round, Catry said.

“They are very dependent on waste from landfills,” she explained, adding that white storks were “very adaptable and could benefit from living with humans.”

In addition, southern Portugal’s milder weather conditions in winter are now comparable to those experienced by birds in Africa, Catry said.

– ‘Stork Motherhood’ –

After declining significantly – mainly due to drought in Africa’s Sahel region, which decimated their food supplies – the number of storks in Portugal began to increase again in the 1980s.

The birds found conditions more favorable in Portugal than in Africa. Electricity pylons along roads have become a favorite. A single mast can sometimes house as many as thirty nests.

Over the past two decades, the Portuguese electricity grid operator REN has taken steps to reduce the risk of storks being electrocuted, especially when building nests, and to prevent power outages.

These include installing platforms on metal masts that the birds can use for building nests.

Nearly a quarter of white stork nests can now be found on these platforms, also known as “stork farms”.

Before the breeding season, specialized teams clean the platforms, move nests if necessary and repair metal grilles set up to keep storks away from power lines.

“We have been working here for more than twenty years to make our equipment compatible with the presence of storks. We are used to it,” says Francisco Parada, head of environmental safety at REN.

The storks appear to be flourishing as a result, he said, with the number of birds nesting on these platforms having “quadrupled” in the past 20 years.