Filial cannibalism in the Black Stork (Ciconia nigra)

Figures & data

Figure 1. Locations of the study areas (filled squares) in Europe.

Table I. Number of Black Stork broods (breeding episodes) monitored that reached the nestling stage, chicks hatched, filial infanticide and filial cannibalism (including attempts) cases in each country study area.

	Estonia	Hungary	Poland	Spain	Total
Number of Black Stork broods (breeding episodes)	13	12	6	3	34
Number of chicks hatched	47	33	23	10	113
Number of broods with filial infanticide cases	6	5	1	1	13
Total number of victimised chicks recorded	8	8	1	1	18
Filial cannibalism attempts after filial infanticide	1	2	1	0	4
Filialcannibalism recorded	3	6^1	0	1	10

¹Two chicks died naturally and were swallowed and regurgitated by parents.

Table II. Filial cannibalism (including attempts and dead hatchlings) episodes. References of mean number of fledglings per nest with fledglings in each country: ¹Väli et al. (2021); ²Kalocsa and Tamás (2002); ³Czuchnowski and Profus (2008); ⁴Del Moral (2018).

Case	Date (dd/mm/yy)	Country	Number of hatchlings	Age (days) of chick when the event happened	Smallest/weakest one	Swallowed/Attempt	Regurgitated	Number of fledglings	Environmental stress detected	Sex of parent that committed the episode	Mean number of fledglings per nest with fledglings	Hatching period	New pair
1	19/05/2008	Estonia	4	1–2 days	Yes	Swallowed	No	3	?	Female	2.51^1	Second half of May–June	Male is new
2	20/05/2008	Estonia	4	30 minutes	Yes	Swallowed	Yes	3	?	Female	2.51	Second half of May–June	Male is new
3	27/05/2012	Hungary	4	2 days	Yes	Swallowed	?	No	?	?	3.13^2	May	?
4	30/05/2012	Hungary	4	5 days	Yes	Swallowed	Yes	No	?	?	3.13	May	?
5	25/05/2013	Hungary	4	6 days	Yes	Swallowed	Yes	No	Female disappeared	Male	3.13	May	No new pair
6	20/05/2015	Hungary	4	3 days	Yes	Swallowed	?	1	Food shortage	Female	3.13	May	No new pair
7	04/05/2017	Hungary	4	5 days	Yes	Attempt	?	3	Spring rain	Male	3.13	May	No new pair
8	10/05/2020	Hungary	3	10 days	Yes	Attempt	No	No	Food shortage	?	3.13	May	?
9	03/06/2021	Poland	4	8 days	Yes	Attempt	No	3	No	Male	2.79^3	Second half of May	Female is new
10	28/05/2022	Estonia	6	2 days	Yes	Swallowed	Yes	3 rescued	?	Female	2.51	Second half of May–June	Female is new
11	03/06/2022	Estonia	5	10 days	Yes	Attempt	No	3 rescued	Male disappeared two days earlier	Female	2.51	Second half of May–June	Female is new
12	27/05/2023	Spain	3	4 days	Yes	Swallowed	No	2	Drought	?	2.4^4	First half of May	?
Filial cannibalism without infanticide
13	11/05/2019	Hungary	4		Underdeveloped, died	Swallowed	Yes	No	Spring rain	Both	3.13	May
14	12/05/2019	Hungary	4		Underdeveloped, died	Swallowed	Yes	No	Spring rain	Both	3.13	May

Väli Ü, Nellis R, Kaldma K, Vainu O, Sellis U. 2021. The abundance, reproductive success and apparent survival of the Estonian Black Stork population in 1991–2020. Hirundo: Magazine of BirdLife Estonia 34:20–39. in Estonian with English summary.

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Kalocsa B, Tamás EA. 2002. A fekete gólya (Ciconia nigra) állományának felmérése a gemenci erdőben – fészkelési szokások és költési eredményesség (1992–2000). Aquila 107-108:215–223. (In Hungarian with English Summary).

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Czuchnowski R, Profus P. 2008. Distribution, changes in numbers, and breeding biology of the Black Stork Ciconia nigra in Poland. Biota 9:5–14.

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Del Moral JC 2018. La cigüeña negra en España, población reproductora en 2017 y método de censo. SEO/BirdLife. Madrid. (In Spanish).

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