Gozo Channel designated as Malta’s first Marine Important Bird Area

BirdLife Malta today announced news that the Malta-Gozo Channel has been confirmed as Malta’s first Marine Important Bird Area (IBA) in recognition of its international importance for two globally and one regionally threatened bird species, putting Malta on the world stage alongside such iconic biodiversity hotspots as the Galapagos and the Azores as a refuge for threatened wildlife. The press announcement of the IBA was made on the roof Red Tower in Mellieħa this afternoon, against the backdrop of spectacular views across the channel encompassing the full extent of the new IBA, which stretches from Ta’ Cenc cliffs in the west to Rdum tal-Madonna in the east and includes the island of Comino. Speaking at the event, Nicholas Barbara, BirdLife Malta’s Conservation Manager and Project Manager of the LIFE Yelkouan Shearwater Project said that this is the first time a research project of this scale with the aim of conserving wildlife had been tried in Malta. The designation of the 123 hectare site follows the assessment of a proposal and data submitted by BirdLife Malta in 2011 against standard, internationally recognised criteria established by BirdLife International’s IBA Progamme, a network of more than 10,000 sites considered as the minimum necessary to ensure the survival of the species concerned across their ranges Birds from Malta’s two main breeding populations of the ‘Red-Listed’ Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) and the larger Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) at Rdum tal-Madonna, in Malta, and Ta’ Cenc, in Gozo, make use of the channel, congregating on the water in large numbers before returning to their nearby cliff-side nest sites to take their turn incubating their egg or feeding their young chick. The channel, including the island of Comino, is also an important migration route for the Ferruginous Duck (Aythya nyroca), acting as a bottleneck through which these ‘Near-threatened’ birds are funnelled on their passage through the Maltese Archipelago between their breeding grounds in Europe and their African wintering grounds. Maltese birdwatchers and ornithologists have been recording observations of the breeding and migrating birds that use the channel for decades. Malta’s first EU LIFE project, the Yelkouan Shearwater Project (2006-2009), made the resources available to pursue the intensive studies required to collect the amount of rigorous scientific data needed for the true importance of the site to be assessed. [gallery ids="51432,51434,51433,51435"]