LIFE Oxyura

The white-headed duck is a small Eurasian diving duck breeding in Spain and North Africa and frequently reported in Russia and Kazakhstan. It is the only species belonging to the genus Oxyura in Europe.
The ongoing decline of its populations as led the International Union for Conservation of Nature to rate the species as “endangered” in the Red List of Threatened Species (BirdLife International & UICN, 2012).
Several international action plans have thus been settled successively to face the extinction risk threatening the species.

One of the main threats identified by these conservation plans is the genetic introgression by hybridization of the white-headed duck with the ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis).
Imported for captive breeding in the United Kingdom seventy years ago, the ruddy duck spread in Europe after the escape of few individuals and mated with white-headed duck individuals in Spain, where fertile hybrids have been observed.

This LIFE project, conducted since October 2018 by the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB), a public institution, and issued for five years, aims at regulating the ruddy duck population in France, into the wild and in captivity. It is an application of the European and national eradication plans of the species reinforced by the new legal dispositions adopted by the European regulation 1143/2014 on invasive alien species.

The National Society for Nature Protection, in charge of the National Nature Reserve of the Grand-Lieu lake, the main wintering site of the ruddy duck in France, is the associated beneficiary of the project.

3 objectives and 9 actions

Objective 1: Eradicate the wild ruddy duck population in France before 2023.

Objective 2: Prevent any introduction in the wild from commercial or recreational activities before 2020. Eradicate the captive population before 2030 (excepted for authorized zoos).

Objective 3: Encourage the early detection and destruction of the ruddy duck in other European countries where it is the most frequently observed and where it may transit to reach North Africa, South and South-Eastern Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Actions on the wild population

Action 1: Implement and coordinate a French network of observers

Action 2: Locate more transit and breeding sites by increasing prospection time

Action 3: Increase the number of culling operations and adapt intervention periods

Action 4: Optimize eradication technics

Action 5: Monitor the wild ruddy duck population

Actions on the captive population

Action 6: Apply temporary captivity dispositions of the European regulation N°1143/2014

Action 7: Implement a communication plan

Action 8: Develop an educational project in authorized ex-situ breeding establishments open to public

Action 9: Involve Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland in the eradication plan.