THE first African sacred ibis brought to Europe were two birds imported to France from Egypt in the mid-1700s.
In the 1800s, the first escapees were sighted in Austria and Italy. In the 1970s it became fashionable for many zoos in Europe and elsewhere to keep their birds in free-flying colonies, which were allowed to forage in the area but would return to roost in the zoo every day.
As such, feral populations were established in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Florida (US), Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and possibly Bahrain.
To control its population, birds entering Spain from France are shot.
There are sacred ibis breeds in sub-Saharan Africa and south-eastern Iraq.
A number of populations migrate with the rains; some of the South African birds migrate 1 500 km as far north as Zambia while the African birds north of the equator migrate in the opposite direction.
The Iraqi population usually migrates to south-western Iran, but wandering (rare, but regular) vagrants have been seen as far south as Oman and, before 1945, as far north as the Caspian coasts of Kazakhstan and Russia.
It may also form single-species groups on offshore islands or abandoned buildings. Island nests are often made on the ground. Large colonies consist of numerous sub-colonies and can number 1 000 birds.
Females lay one to five eggs per season, incubated by both parents for 21 to 29 days. After hatching, one parent continuously stays at the nest for the first seven days. Chicks fledge after 35 to 40 days and are independent after 44 to 48 days, reaching sexual maturity one to five years after hatching.
The species did not breed in Southern Africa before the beginning of the 20th Century, but it has benefitted from irrigation, dams and commercial agricultural practices such as dung heaps, carrion and refuse tips. It began to breed in the early 20th Century. In the 1970s, the first colonies of ibises were recorded in Zimbabwe and South Africa where, in the Orange Free State, its population expanded 2 to 3-fold during the period between 1972 and 1995. It is now found throughout Southern Africa.
The species is a common resident in most parts of South Africa. Local numbers are swollen in summer by individuals migrating southwards from the equator.
Elsewhere in Africa, it occurs throughout the Continent south of the Sahara, but it is largely absent in the deserts of south-western Africa, that is in the Namib, Karoo and the Kalahari and probably the rainforests of the Congo. In West Africa, it is fairly uncommon across the Sahel, except for the major floodplain systems.
It is commonly found breeding along the Niger, the inner Niger Delta of Mali, the Logone River of the Central African Republic, Lac Fitri in Chad, the Saloum Delta of Senegal and other localities, such as in The Gambia, in relatively small numbers. It is common across Eastern Africa and Southern Africa. Large numbers can be found in the Sudd Swamps and Lake Kundi in Sudan in the dry season. It is fairly widespread along the upper Nile River, and is quite common around Mogadishu (Somalia). In Tanzania, there are a number of sites with 500 to more than 1 000 birds, totaling some 20 000 birds.
The ibis usually breeds once per year in the wet season. Breeding season is from March to August in Africa and from April to May in Iraq. It builds a stick nest, often in an adansonia tree (baobab). The bird nests in tree colonies, often with other large wading birds.
In Zimbabwe, where they are a protected species under the Parks and Wildlife Protection Act, veterinary epidemiologist and keen ornithologist scholar Dr Tony Monda observed that small colonies of ibis were frequently seen near marshlands in the environs of Shona ancestral strongholds of Nyashanu, Mbiri, Zvimba, Chiweshe and Chinamora, in Mashonaland; the later-day suburbs of Avondale, Emerald Hill, Mabelreign, Mt Pleasant, Belvedere, Mbare, Marimba Park, Vainona, Borrowdale and Kambanji, all in the environs around Harare — this confirms the were sacred to prehistoric Zimbabwe as well.
Also according to Dr Monda, this species can be susceptible to avian botulism, especially with the mushrooming of refuse dumps in most suburbs.
The diet of these predator birds, which generally feed in flocks primarily by day, consists mainly of insects, worms, crustaceans, mollusks and other invertebrates, as well as various fish, frogs, reptiles, small mammals and carrion. It may also probe into the soil with its long beak for invertebrates such as earthworms, and sometimes seeds such as mhunga, rapoko or rice as they do in the rice fields of northern Italy.
The global population of African sacred ibis is estimated at 200 000-450 000 birds but appears to be decreasing. It is covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Water birds (AEWA), and is classified as ‘Least Concern’ by the IUCN. The African fish eagle is the most important predator of nestlings of the sacred ibis in Kenya which preferentially searches for the largest (sub) colonies to attack, but it poses less of a threat in Ethiopia and South Africa.
Often mistaken for storks or egrets, roosting high up in eucalyptus trees, some residents of Helensvale were recently seen capturing several of the birds for dubious purposes until a report was made to the authorities who quickly took action to bring the reprobate offenders to book.
But one cannot help but wonder – could the wanton termination, slaughter, extinction of this African sacred bird be responsible for the continents’ unending droughts, famine, conflicts, pestilence and woes in general? After all, Egypt, where they originated, was once the cradle of humanity – or was it just a myth/legend?
In myth and legend, Pliny and Galen ascribe the invention of the enema to the ibis, as according to them it gave such treatments to hippopotami, and Plutarch assured us it used only salt water for this purpose. 1 600 years later, this was still accepted science, as Claude Perrault, in his anatomical descriptions of the bird, claimed to have found a hole in the bill which the bird used for that purpose.
According to Claudius Aelianus, in De Natura Animalium, and Gaius Julius Solinus, both quoting much earlier but now lost authors, the sacred ibis procreates with its bill, and thus the bird is always a virgin.
Greek philosopher-scientist Aristotle, writing some 500 years earlier, also mentions this theory, but later repudiates it. Picrius mentions how the venomous basilisk is hatched from the eggs of ibis and nurtured from the poisons of all the serpents the birds devour. These authors and many others also mention how crocodiles and snakes are rendered motionless after being touched by the feather of an ibis. Claudius Aelianus also says the ibis is consecrated to the moon.
Whether myth or legend, the sacred African ibis is a unique and mystifying species we should protect and preserve.
Dr Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant and is a published author in her field. For comments e-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com
