Dr. Rob Sheldon, will develop a comprehensive monitoring methodology for the Red-breasted Goose to be applied in all key range countries of the species. The new methodology will allow the collection of detailed and objective data on population size, numbers and threats in the key sites for the species.
Dr. Rob Sheldon has worked in nature conservation for almost 20 years, including 12 years with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Since 2013, he has been the Chairman of the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, The Caucasus and Central Asia (OSME). Most recently he has worked for the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) as the Director of the King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre (KKWRC) in Saudi Arabia. He now works freelance as a consultant through RDS Conservation.
In the middle of January, Dr. Rob Sheldon, accompanied by teams of the Romanian Ornithological Society and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, made a multisite field tour of the main staging sites for the Red-breasted Goose in the two neighboring countries. Thus the international expert acquainted himself with the specificities of the sites and the specifics of the monitoring activities in Bulgaria and Romania.
Dr. Sheldon’s visit to Romania and Bulgaria was the start of one of the most important activities of the LIFE for Safe Flight Project lead by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds in partnership with ten other partner organisations and institutions in the countries from the flyway of the Red-breasted Goose – Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania and Bulgaria, co-funded by the EU’s LIFE program.
The new methodology and the future data gathered through it will make a significant contribution to meeting the objectives of the AEWA International Plan of Action for Red-breasted Goose and will help to provide more precise and accurate information on population changes in species and specific threats to the sites, etc. This will allow for a more realistic assessment of the conservation status of the Red-breasted Goose, which has been a major problem in recent years due to contradictory data from different parts of the species flyway.
