Wildlife Research and Conservation

Funding

Falconry monitoring and installation of nesting boxes for falcons in industrial areas of the Czech Republic can be financed from various sources:

Monitoring

Monitoring of the Peregrine falcon in urban and industrial environment completed under a programme funded by the Ministry of the Environment (the project does not have to express the MoE opinions).

In other years the monitoring of falcons has been financed through own funds or by individual companies where the nestboxes were installed, see below.

Installation of nesting boxes

The purchase and installation of nest boxes is usually financed by the owner of the building: ČEZ a.s. / CEZ Foundation / Unipetrol RPA s.r.o. / Lafarge Cement a.s. / United Energy a.s. / Škoda Energo a.s. / AGC processing Teplice a.s. / Thermo Decin a.s. / Spolana a.s. / MVV Energie CZ / Prague Heating Plant / Zevo Malešice Prague

Date

Contact

Václav Beran: vaclav.beran@alkawildlife.eu, 731407839

Target species

Peregrine falcon

Target area

Czech Republic

Background information

The Peregrine Falcon is very rare in the Czech Republic and is one of our critically endangered species. In many countries, it became extinct during the 1960s, especially due the effects of the DDT application but now, however, it gradually returns and its current abundance is around 75 nesting pairs.

Normally, it nests on rocks, but due to growing human pressure, their natural habitats for nesting are changing. Therefore, in recent years a new phenomenon has been spreading from neighbouring Germany to the Czech Republic - the nesting of falcons in human buildings. The population of building nesting peregrines in Germany has already reached several hundred pairs and is still growing. However, when nesting at construction sites, peregrines often find it difficult to find a suitable place leading to unsuccessful nesting or complications in site operations.

Project aims

In order to help the falcons and the owners of buildings where they may try to nest, our project aims to install nest boxes to help support the peregrines nesting. We will use durable aluminium nest boxes on cooling towers, chimneys and other high-rise buildings in Northern, and gradually central, Bohemia in cooperation with owners / operators. If well chosen, nesting can be much safer for the peregrines. Large buildings such as power plants are carefully guarded, so falcons will not be threatened by poachers or disturbed by climbers, tourists, photographers and others in their natural environments.

Funding of these activities is provided from private sources, mostly by the owners or operators of the buildings where the nest boxes will be placed.

The first nest box was installed at the Tušimice power plant in 2010 and several more places will be added every year.

Occupancy of nest boxes, nesting success, numbers of chicks fledged, ringing of parents and chicks alongside other details of the peregrines occupying the nest boxes are monitored every year. Since 2016, the online monitoring of the breeding process has be running at one of CEZ’s buildings.

Summary articles on nesting of falcons in industrial areas

2015: tzb-info.cz: Chimneys of heating plants help in saving the Peregrine Falcon (Czech)

2015: moderniobec.cz: Heating plant chimneys help rare predators (Czech)

2014: tzb-info.cz: Chimneys of heating plants save the population of the endangered Peregrine falcon (Czech)

2011: Nature Protection magazine 1/2011: Return of the Peregrine falcon (Czech)

Locations

ČEZ Buildings

Chempark Záluží

Lafarge Cement, Čížkovice

United Energy

ŠKO Energy

Teplice Glassworks

Děčíně heating plant

Spolana Chemical Factory

Liberec heating plant

České Budějovice heating plant

Prague