Europe’s rarest songbird is facing extinction, despite being the most promiscuous and energetic lover in the avian world, and concerned scientists are looking urgently for ways to save it.
The male aquatic warbler is described as “continuously ready to mate” and able to indulge in record-breaking mating sessions, which in turn gives the females ample opportunity to sample and select the best mates.
However, numbers have slumped to less than 20,000 in the past century — a decline of 95 percent — and its range has shrunk from continent-wide to isolated strongholds in eastern Europe as humans have ravaged its habitat.
“It is officially listed as ‘vulnerable’ and it faces the prospect of extinction unless things get better,” Ed Parnell of BirdLife International told Reuters.
Experts gather
Scientists from across the continent are meeting in Spain this week for the first top-level international conference to save the songbird, whose habitat is disappearing as marshlands are drained and farmland is expanded.
The male bird plays no part in nest-building or raising chicks and spends most of its time hunting for willing females and mating at length.
“In contrast to most birds, which get the business over in a mere one to two seconds’ sexual contact, aquatic warblers spend up to 35 minutes copulating,” according to one paper at the conference.
Lucky with love
Alexander Kozulin, a researcher in Belarus who has taken the lead in protecting the bird's habitat, said he was hopeful for the species' future.
“We are concentrating on recreating over 40,000 hectares of fens and bogs to make sure that they can increase their numbers and expand their range,” he said in a statement issued by BirdLife.
And it doesn't hurt that the warbler has a strong sexual appetite. “Given that the aquatic warbler is Europe's rarest songbird,” he said, “we are lucky that they are also the most amorous — which makes our work to increase the size of the population so much easier.”
