Last year, in the Site of European Importance ‘Holubyho kopanice’ in the White Carpathians, we focused on clearing several springs and travertine marshes of invasive woody plants, maintaining infiltration pits, and hand-mowing meadows in their vicinity. These rare wetland habitats are inaccessible to larger machinery, which led to the abandonment of management practices, gradual overgrowth, and subsequent drying out.
Currently, 70 new nest boxes are being installed on power line poles in the SPA Medzibodrožie area. The European roller didn’t nest in Slovakia for a full decade after 2010.
The project logo has an organic character. It symbolises life regardless of its form. The graphic design depicts a sign thrown into the water, which slowly dissolves and also refers to the rewetting of the sites. It does not have clear lines and the letters connect to each other.
We could now gladly inform, that the main project objective – to restore the key natural habitats of Danube floodplains and to introduce sound sustainable management – was achieved.
Various types of man-made barriers such as dams, weirs, steps, fords, culverts, etc. create obstacles in streams and cause water levels to rise. This creates non-native lake ecosystems with many negative effects, above the barriers due to the slowing of the flow and below the barriers due to the disturbed water regime and sediment transport regime.
The reintroduction of the protected species Pseudophilotes bavius and Phengaris teleius began in the Romanian project sites in 2023. In the following season, several individuals of Ph. teleius were observed in sites near Angofa, thus the reintroduction effort for this species can be considered successful.
This year, we successfully completed the Annual activity report for the year 2023. Our ambition in creating it is to provide a comprehensive overview to our supporters, benefactors, and the general public about our activities throughout the year 2023.
Experts László Rákosy and Andrei Crișan conducted 2 workshops at Luna de Jos in August 2024. The first focused on moth diversity with 120 participants, while the second addressed protected butterflies in the cultural landscape, attracting 34 participants.
At the beginning of September we actively participated in the meeting of project partners from the Danubeparks network of protected areas in Tulcea, Romania. In addition to updates, progress and new challenges in the ongoing LIFE WILDisland project across the whole project consortium, we had the opportunity to visit valuable places in the Danube Delta and selected project sites near Isaccea, where floodplain revitalisation is underway.
Last weekend, SOS/BirdLife Slovakia organized the 21st volunteer camp to mow Bird Island in the SPA Dunajské luhy. Despite the heat and hard work, 45 participants mowed and raked nearly the entire island.