Members of the environmental team of the port of Tarragona and specialists from the Marine Fauna Rescue Team of the Department of Climate Action have ringed 298 Audouin’s Gull chicks inside the port area. This figure represents an increase of 80.6% compared to the figures for 2022. The Banya lighthouse, with 235 ringings, and the Química pier, with 63, are the main places chosen by the colony to nest in the port .
On June 15, the team counted a total of 400 nests of this species of gull considered “vulnerable.” One in three Catalan Audouin’s Gulls nests in port areas, attracted by safe places to nest and the presence of food from fishing discards.
The port of Tarragona follows the nesting areas every year from when the first nests appear in February until the last chicks leave in July. Later, most of the specimens leave the colonies when the breeding period ends. The first data available in the port is from 2013 with a total of 18 nests and 16 ringed chicks. Since then, the presence of these birds has increased considerably until reaching, in 2019, 1,043 nests out of a total of 3,555 throughout Catalonia, with 362 ringed chicks.
Audouin’s Gull is considered a vulnerable species within the list of species drawn up by the Ornithological Information Server of Catalonia. Initially, it nested on Mediterranean islets until in the 1980s it colonized the Delta de l’Ebre, which came to house more than two thirds of the world’s population and a maximum of 15,396 pairs in 2006.
Currently, a certain stabilization of the population has been achieved in Catalonia, around 3,500 pairs in 2021. However, experts consider that there is still a long way to go to achieve a stable state for long-term conservation.
