European storks fly south to the African region of the Sahel to spend the winter, stopping in Spain along the way. But due to the higher temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate change and the abundance of food found in open dumps, most adult storks no longer make long and grueling journeys.
At the Colmenar Viejo landfill in Madrid, Phys Org dumps about 100 trucks of household waste a day into a hopper, which is then covered with sand by excavators, writes Phys Org. Hundreds of white storks built nests up to 1.8 meters tall on roofs and in the bell tower of a nearby church. There are even sockets on street lamps. “It’s a paradise for storks because it’s got grass, pastures and dumps, so everything is there,” said Alejandro López Garcia, who studied the stork population in Madrid for his doctoral thesis at the Complutense University of Madrid.
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According to the census, in the fall of 2020, researchers found 36,217 of the estimated 450,000 European white storks in Spain. This makes it, along with Poland, the most popular country for this breed on the continent. López Garcia said that in the Madrid area alone, the task force recently counted 2,300 breeding bird pairs, up from 200 recorded in 1984.
Higher temperatures are likely to continue to rise, meaning more birds will fly into Madrid throughout the winter. Other species, such as swallows, no longer migrate further south to Africa. Researchers from the Technical University of Zurich have predicted that by 2050, the average temperature in the coldest month in the Spanish capital will rise by 3.1 degrees Celsius (37.5 degrees Fahrenheit).
Storks feed on insects, rodents, and worms that they remove from the litter to supplement their food. But for this traditional symbol of luck and fertility, danger lurks among the growing piles of garbage.
“With better weather and higher temperatures, insects and worms are becoming more accessible to storks,” said Blas Molina, an ornithologist. But Molina added that each year chicks and adults die because they eat plastic or rubber, which they think are worms. Their legs get tangled in plastic cords, cutting off their blood flow, and eventually they die.”
The negative effects of the stork’s litter diet are also affecting the human population. During the winter, storks from all over Europe still travel short distances south, but if they forage in landfills, potentially toxic chemicals can enter waterways and drinking water sources where they stop along the way. “Any pollutants you have or potentially toxic compounds end up in these waters,” said Lopez Garcia.
López Garcia said the tendency for storks to nest away from traditional wetlands and in areas adjacent to the city is also clear. These large birds are fiercely devoted to their nesting grounds and return each year to gather their populations around landfills all over Spain.
Increasingly, humans and storks live side by side, sometimes in awkward compromise. White storks can have a wingspan of 7 feet and a weight of 10 pounds, so they require ample nesting space. In Rivas Vasiamadrid, a suburban town southeast of Madrid, the birds reside in a metro station and a local church.
Council member Carmen Rebollo described storks as “our neighbors”, saying that birds in general are loved. However, managing their habitat was difficult. “The only difficulty we may have with them is that at some point they make the nests too heavy or they can damage the roof, but at this point we are trying to reduce, place or move the nests,” he said.
López Garcia acknowledged that the rapid spread of storks around Madrid over the past few decades has caused tensions. “Plots with two slots in the village church, municipality, municipality are fine, but if there are 30 slots, it may start to bother people.”
Now that storks have changed their migration and breeding patterns to adapt to the abundance of litter dumps on offer, a new threat looms. In 2020, Spain adopted a European Union directive as national legislation aimed at keeping all organic waste out of landfills. This is exactly the waste filled with mice, insects and worms that storks flock to for food.
“This means that the food they are currently eating will be destroyed,” said Lopez Garcia, suggesting that landfills should be left for storks to feed on. We offer a smooth transition or dump closures that won’t happen overnight.”
However, according to López Garcia, the ultimate benefit of reducing the planet’s warming methane by reducing organic matter in landfills outweighs the benefit of the food source the storks can find there. “In the medium and long term, feeding from dumpsters is negative for them,” he said.
Previously Focus He wrote that the consequences of global warming will affect 90% of the world’s population. According to scientists, the world population will face a potential increase in social inequality and the inability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
Source: Focus
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