09/08/2023
Focus TV filmed the release of our juvenile herring gulls 2023.
‘In nature reserve Ysermonde in Nieuwpoort, 35 herring gulls have been released, all wearing transmitters for scientific research. These are gull chicks hatched at the Wildlife Rescue Centre in Ostend.’
‘So the young gulls are now entering the wild for the first time. That takes some getting used to for most birds. Last year, only a third of the tagged gulls survived the release. ‘It is the first time these birds will fly in the wild. They now have to specialise in finding food and avoiding predators,’ explains Reinoud Allaert, a PhD student at UGent.
Many gulls die in their first year of life because of foxes, but traffic and bird flu in particular play tricks on the protected bird species. From now on, this team of biologists monitors them closely by computer. The older they get, the less vulnerable the gulls are. Research shows that some herring gulls in our seaside resorts are more than 30 years old.
You can watch the full report here (in Dutch):
