February 2015 report

 

During February, after a long period of preparation and bad weather conditions, a brief calm weather spell permitted our team to start the fieldwork at Gavrionisia islets for the rat eradication campaign. The NCC small inflatable boat, purchased under the falco eleonorae ELClimA project was used together with the project vessel to transport the campaign material and field workers to the project islets. Poison baits have been placed in bait stations evenly distributed along the coastline and in the interior of the islets according to a predefined plan. More work on the subject will follow in March and the action will be further expanded to Mandilou, to fully achieve the originally set objectives. Furthermore, during the last days of February the planting activities at the islets Kalogeros and Dysvato also started with planting of new pistacia plantings, with the assistance of a reforestation expert. More work is planned to take place in March, with Capparis plantings in the same islets, involving a capparis expert.

The project team is optimistic that, as the weather improves in March, these concrete conservation actions will be almost completed within the next 2 months.

A new field researcher was hired by HOS to carry out the Bonelli’s eagle field surveys, which will start at the beginning of March.

The LCG continued in contact, but due to the general bad weather conditions, no outdoor activities were carried out. The group will join the field researcher in the efforts to identify new Bonelli’s eagle breeding territories in March.

Some missing parts of the fencing of the cultivated fields have been replaced.

Finally, land patrolling and surveillance continued throughout the month.