EU foots bill to save duck
Cash will be used to buy two farms in El Hondo natural park
THE EU Life project is investing over €6.37 million in Spain over five years to help restore the population of Europe’s most endangered duck, the marbled teal (Marmaronetta angustirostris).
Of this funding, €2.8 million has been allocated to the Valencia region and will be used to buy two farms in El Hondo natural park, support programmes to breed the species in captivity and reintroduce it to the wild, and acquire the necessary equipment to mark and follow individuals.
“El Hondo is a strategic enclave and a baseline for the recovery of the marbled teal,” said regional councillor for ecological transition, Mireia Mollà at the presentation of the project last week.
She noted that it will complement the regional government’s current recovery plan, which it has been implementing since 2017.
Over the last decade the regional government has bred more than 1,000 marbled teals in captivity, and released 550 of them into El Hondo.
El Hondo and the Marismas del Guadalquivir are the most important wetlands in Europe for the marbled teal.
Nests in the natural park between Elche and Crevillente enabled it to spread to other wetlands along the region’s coastline, such as the Marjal dels Moros in Sagunto, or the Albufera in Valencia.
These two farms, La Raja and El Espigar – and El Rincón which is already owned by the regional government – ‘will form the most vital space for reproduction of the marbled teal’, said Sra Mollà.
Regular censuses of the population have been assisted by Miguel Hernández university in Elche, and the ministry for agriculture has collaborated by marking these ducks with GSM transmitters to provide information about their migratory routes, problems the species encounters and their usage of the habitat.
However, last year data from the university indicated that many of the marbled teals released into the wild had ended up being shot and killed by hunters in nearby game reserves within the park.