Many storks in Eindhoven Zoo: never before so many nests in the park

Eindhoven Zoo has many storks as guests this year. The zoo in Mierlo currently has as many as thirteen nests with breeding birds. Never before have so many been counted in the park.

The animals are in all sorts of places in the park, including with the otters, rhinos and on the aviary. Head zookeeper Stephan Rijnen thinks it's great to see the storks descend so massively in Dierenijk. "Zoos are actively committed to preserving nature, far away, but also close by. Parks often have various initiatives to protect native animals and plants as well. Therefore, we are very happy that storks feel so much at home here."

In the 1970s, the stork had all but disappeared from the Netherlands. With the efforts of many volunteers, the Bird Conservancy managed to prevent this bird species from becoming extinct in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the bird is no longer threatened with extinction.

Litter loyalty
A stork's nest consists of large branches and twigs and is lined on the inside with soft material such as sod and other plant material. On average, a nest is 1.5 meters in diameter and a nest can weigh as much as 2 tons. Migratory birds often return to the same nest and continue to build it each year, sometimes for decades. Because storks faithfully revisit their nest each year, the pairs also stay together.

This also applies to the birds in Eindhoven Zoo, Rijnen knows: "We used to have a special nesting pole on the spot where there is now a tree in the Chimpanzee enclosure. We removed this pole a number of years ago, but at this exact spot there is now another stork's nest. This is very special, as if the stork wants to say with this that this spot remains his."

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