Oriental White Storks in the wild
Stork Release Method and History
Release Method
There are two main methods to release animals back into the wild. One is called “hard release” when the animal is released direct at the release site. The other method is called “soft release” when the animal is first habituated to the release site’s environment before being released. In the case of Oriental White Storks, we use a hard release and two types of soft releases for adult storks (including subadults) and young storks.
For the soft release of the adult stork, we place a temporary cage at the release site (called the release base) and keep the stork in the cage for at least three months. Then we open the cage and allow the stork to fly away on its own. For the soft release of a young stork, we keep a pair of storks breed inside the release base and later we open the cage roof to allow only the raised young stork to fly away when they want to.
Release Record
Table: The number of the Storks Released for each Method (as of October 31th, 2022)
| Year | Hard Release | Soft Release (Adult) | Soft Release (Young) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 5 | 2 | – | 7 |
| 2006 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 9 |
| 2007 | 3 | 2 | – | 5 |
| 2008 | – | – | 2 | 2 |
| 2009 | – | 2 | – | 2 |
| 2010 | – | – | 2 | 2 |
| 2011 | – | – | – | – |
| 2012 | 1 | – | – | 1 |
| 2013 | – | – | 4 | 4 |
| 2014 | – | – | 2 | 2 |
| 2015 | – | – | 3 | 3 |
| 2016 | – | – | 4 | 4 |
| 2017 | – | – | 4 | |
| 2018 | 2 | – | 2 | 4 |
| 2019 | 4 | – | – | 4 |
| 2020 | – | – | – | – |
| 2021 | 2 | – | – | 2 |
| 2022 | 2 | – | – | 2 |
| 合計 | 22 | 10 | 25 | 57 |
