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Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Once widespread around the Mediterranean region, the Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) became one of the rarest birds in the world. In this paper, we trace the history of the species through different epochs up to the present. A particular focus is placed both on its life in an...

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Autores principales: Fritz, Johannes, Janák, Jiří
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9219447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35739905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12121569
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author Fritz, Johannes
Janák, Jiří
author_facet Fritz, Johannes
Janák, Jiří
author_sort Fritz, Johannes
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Once widespread around the Mediterranean region, the Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) became one of the rarest birds in the world. In this paper, we trace the history of the species through different epochs up to the present. A particular focus is placed both on its life in and disappearance from ancient Egypt, where the bird attained significant cultural importance, and on the modern endeavour to re-wild and restore the species. The Northern Bald Ibis is an outstanding example of how an interdisciplinary cultural-historical and natural-scientific approach significantly promotes the interpretation of historical evidence as well as helps implement current rewilding and restoration efforts. ABSTRACT: We trace the history of the endangered Northern Bald Ibis through different epochs to the present. A particular focus is placed on its life in and disappearance from ancient Egypt, where the bird attained great cultural and religious significance, and on the modern endeavour to re-wild the species. Due to the characteristic appearance, behaviour and habitat of the species as well as its need for open foraging areas, a close mutualistic relationship between humans and the birds was formed in ancient Egypt, as in other cultures. A clear benefit for the Northern Bald Ibis was the availability of feeding habitats, which were cleared by humans for farming or grazing. The benefit to people was rather cultural because the bird attracted religious veneration or symbolic meanings from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe. The proximity to humans, however, carried a high risk as well. We discuss various types of impact (including human impacts as well as climate change) as triggers for the extinction of the species. The evidence for a triple disappearance of the Northern Bald Ibis (around 2000 BCE, around 1600 CE and in modern time) represents a unique basis for studying both the bird’s habitat preferences and its vulnerability. This is because different, mainly anthropogenic, causes stood behind these three historical disappearances, although the disappearances in all three epochs occurred during a period of climate change.
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spelling pubmed-92194472022-06-24 Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species Fritz, Johannes Janák, Jiří Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Once widespread around the Mediterranean region, the Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) became one of the rarest birds in the world. In this paper, we trace the history of the species through different epochs up to the present. A particular focus is placed both on its life in and disappearance from ancient Egypt, where the bird attained significant cultural importance, and on the modern endeavour to re-wild and restore the species. The Northern Bald Ibis is an outstanding example of how an interdisciplinary cultural-historical and natural-scientific approach significantly promotes the interpretation of historical evidence as well as helps implement current rewilding and restoration efforts. ABSTRACT: We trace the history of the endangered Northern Bald Ibis through different epochs to the present. A particular focus is placed on its life in and disappearance from ancient Egypt, where the bird attained great cultural and religious significance, and on the modern endeavour to re-wild the species. Due to the characteristic appearance, behaviour and habitat of the species as well as its need for open foraging areas, a close mutualistic relationship between humans and the birds was formed in ancient Egypt, as in other cultures. A clear benefit for the Northern Bald Ibis was the availability of feeding habitats, which were cleared by humans for farming or grazing. The benefit to people was rather cultural because the bird attracted religious veneration or symbolic meanings from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe. The proximity to humans, however, carried a high risk as well. We discuss various types of impact (including human impacts as well as climate change) as triggers for the extinction of the species. The evidence for a triple disappearance of the Northern Bald Ibis (around 2000 BCE, around 1600 CE and in modern time) represents a unique basis for studying both the bird’s habitat preferences and its vulnerability. This is because different, mainly anthropogenic, causes stood behind these three historical disappearances, although the disappearances in all three epochs occurred during a period of climate change. MDPI 2022-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9219447/ /pubmed/35739905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12121569 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fritz, Johannes
Janák, Jiří
Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title_full Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title_fullStr Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title_full_unstemmed Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title_short Tracing the Fate of the Northern Bald Ibis over Five Millennia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Extinction and Recovery of an Iconic Bird Species
title_sort tracing the fate of the northern bald ibis over five millennia: an interdisciplinary approach to the extinction and recovery of an iconic bird species
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9219447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35739905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12121569
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