Great Bustard

About the Great Bustard

The great bustard (Otis tarda) is a bird in the bustard family, and the only living member of the genus Otis. It breeds in open grasslands and farmland from northern Morocco, South and Central Europe to temperate Central and East Asia. European populations are mainly resident, but Asian populations migrate farther south in winter. Endangered as of 2023, it had been listed as a Vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 1996.

Portugal and Spain now host about 60% of the world's great bustard population. The species was extirpated in Great Britain in the 19th century, when the last bird was shot in 1832. Since 1998, The Great Bustard Group have helped reintroduce it to England on Salisbury Plain, a British Army training area. Here, the lack of public access and disturbance allows them the seclusion they desire as a large, ground-nesting bird.

The genus name Otis was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae; it came from the Greek name ὠτίς ōtis used for this species taken from Natural History by Pliny the Elder published around 77 AD which briefly mentions a bird like it, it was also given the name ωτιδος... Wikipedia →