Campaign delivers for endangered storks

Dust off the chimney and get the cradle ready – storks are back in the Netherlands.

After a 27-year effort, the Dutch Bird Protection Society said yesterday that the country's stork population is now stable at 400 pairs and no longer needs the support of a breeding programme.

In the mid-1970s, the white stork – regarded as a symbol of good luck and the mythical carrier of babies – had been reduced to just 10 pairs, though it remained common in other parts of Europe.

Storks suffered after the Second World War when farmers drained the marshy grasslands where the birds lived, and sprayed pesticides to poison the insects they ate, said Hans Peeters, a spokesman for the Bird Protection Society.

"Modern farming changed the Dutch landscape, and that was devastating for the birds," he said.

The society launched an artificial stork breeding programme in 1975, turning the old tale about storks delivering human babies on its head. Birds bred in the programme were reintroduced into the wild, and the stork's comeback was also helped by government decisions restricting the use of certain pesticides and partially restoring the birds' habitat.

"Now there are 400 breeding pairs of storks, and the population is at its pre-war level, so we can say it has stabilised," Mr Peeters said.

The stork became associated with the Netherlands in the 19th century through the children's story "Hans Brinker", by the American author Mary Mapes Dodge, in which a stork roosting on a chimney brought good luck.

Mr Peeters said the birds do show a preference for roosting on chimneys. "They prefer to live in the middle of cities and to feed in outlying areas," he said. "They are absolutely not afraid of people."