The common pochard (Aythya ferina), a medium-sized diving duck, is declared the Bird of the Year 2023 in the Czech Republic, the Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO) has reported on its website. Photo: Jan Grunwald via CSO.
Czech Rep., Feb 18 (CTK) – The common pochard, the second most numerous duck species after the wild duck, needs wetlands with small islands and reed as its natural habitat, which are rare in Czechia and thus these ducks are nesting on ponds where they must face hunters. Though the common pochard has been a globally endangered species since 2015, it is still among game for hunting in the Czech Republic, which is unacceptable. Ornithologists will be striving for deleting it from the game birds this year. From 7,000 to 14,000 pochard couples are nesting in Czechia annually, and some 3,000 individual birds spend winter there, COS director Zdenek Vermouzek said.
The Bird of the Year has been granted since 1992 and experts use it to raise awareness of the particular bird species and at the same time, urge the public to monitor and protect them. The 2022 Bird of the Year was the European greenfinch, whose population in Czechia has been decimated by trichomoniasis in the past decade.
hol/dr,mr/pvr
