CSTS sponsors student scientific activities
(September 2002)

Centre for Scientific Tourism in Slovakia has co-sponsored a scientific excursion of the Slovak forestry students from the Faculty of Forestry in Zvolen to Finnland and Norway. The group studied boreal forests' patterns in order to compare optimal management schemes for forests both in Scandinavia and the Central Europe.

CSTS has also provided financial support enabling the participation of Mr. Peter Kaňúch, a graduate student from the Institute of Forest Ecology in Zvolen, in the bats migration research at the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Strait of Gibraltar: a phenomenal site in the world for migratory birds

One of the most important places of bird migration in the world is the Strait of Gibraltar. This territory presents a “bottleneck” for an immense amount of migratory birds from western, northern, and central Europe crossing the Mediterranean Sea, on their travel to and from the wintering places in the African continent. Because the strain in only 14 km wide, this area is specially important for soaring birds (storks, vultures, eagles…), during autumn migration concentrated by hundreds or even thousands in this area and waiting for suitable winds for crossing to Africa.

This uniqueness required to develop a special monitoring scheme called MIGRES Programme. In this year 2002, run the programme already for the sixth time. The co-ordination and development of this long-term monitoring project manages the http://www.seo.org/ Sociedad Española de Ornitología (SEO/BirdLife), the Spanish partner of BirdLife International, under promotion and sponsoring by the Regional Government of Andalucía. The aim of the MIGRES Programme is the monitoring of the autumn migration of soaring birds - especially storks (White Stork Ciconia ciconia and Black Stork Ciconia nigra) and a large group of raptors (European Honey-buzzard Pernis apivorus, Black Kite Milvus migrans, Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus, Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus, Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus, harriers, Booted Eagle Hieraaetus pennatus, Osprey Pandion haliaetus and Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni). They are considered as the goal species, thanks to their abundance or conservation status.

This study is focussed on the observations made by the volunteers (from mid-July to mid-October). Every volunteer is counting during 14 days in different watch-sites situated along the Spanish cost. I was one of them in the last period, from 27 September to 10 October 2002. It was a great experience to see a new country, lot of birds and new species, to meet new friends, to become familiar with some new traditions… I would like to say many thanks to the Centre for Scientific Tourism in Slovakia, which partly supported my travel to Spain.

Peter Kaňuch

Slovak Volunteer on MIGRES 2002

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