Paper on Lanner Falcon in Sicily just out!

A new paper describing the conservation status of the Lanner Falcon in Sicily has  been just published by the magazine Bird Study. The paper makes an exhaustive analysis of the data collected throughout 2016 within the monitoring activities carried out by the project LIFE ConRaSi.

The paper, as already highlighted by the news published in this website, confirms the concerns about the Lanner population in Sicily. The figures show  an overall decrease of the Lanner population size in Sicily, along with a reduction of the breeding success.

The main reasons seem to be the abandonment of the breeding sites caused by the human disturbance, the illegal collection of nestlings and the habitat change, driven by the an increasing demand of agricultural areas.

The paper also identifies the urgent measures to put in place to halt the species decline, i.e.: fighting the poaching, ensuring an adequate surveillance of the nesting sites in the critical weeks of the reproduction, creating a network of priority areas where to conserve the pseudo-steppic habitats.

The paper is available here.

We congratulate with the authors of the paper, particularly with Dr Di Vittorio e Prof. Lo Valvo.