White storks 'an emblem of recovery'

WHITE storks are “an emblem for nature recovery’, according to conservationists bringing the long-vanished breeding bird back to the UK.

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The birds could once be seen in Britain’s skies and building their huge nests on roofs and buildings as well as trees, but disappeared centuries ago as a breeding bird due to hunting and habitat loss.

While migratory storks still visit from the continent, conservationists say they need security of numbers and the absence of existing colonies mean they do not settle to breed.

So since 2016, a reintroduction project in southern England has sought to create new colonies of rehabilitated injured storks, which can act as a “magnet” to draw in other wild birds.

The scheme has enabled a wild population of breeding storks re-establish itself for the first time in centuries and delivered unexpected benefits for other birds and wildlife, conservationists say.

The white stork project uses rescued non-flying birds from Warsaw Zoo, Poland, some of which are kept at Cotswold Wildlife Park where they breed, with their young released from Knepp Estate, in West Sussex and Wadhurst Park in East Sussex, to encourage them to come back there to nest.