Landscapes for the conservation of the Giant Ibis in Cambodia

The Giant Ibis is a critically endangered species of bird, now restricted to a small population scattered across the savannahs of northern Cambodia. Through a community conservation programme, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Cambodia protect around 20% of the nesting population, most nests successfully raising young each year but after a decade of such work, there is no sign of a population recovery yet. The savannahs occupied by the ibis have seen landscape-scale changes with loss of large herbivores altering the landscape in a variety of ways that may affect ibis recruitment, but the use of the landscape by young ibis is poorly known. WCS intend to implement landscape management activities to boost ibis populations and this project will use GPS tracking technology to assess the success of these works and assist in developing new conservation plans.
OBJECTIVES:
(1) To identify the landscape features used by young ibis through GPS tagging.
(2) To evaluate the success of interventions designed to simulate herbivore activity at waterholes and across the landscape
(3) To test the hypothesis that loss of large herbivores is preventing ibis recovery
(4) To develop an updated conservation action plan for Giant Ibis