The northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita was once widespread throughout the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern and central Europe. Habitat destruction, persecution and the impacts of pesticides have led to its disappearance from most of its former range. It disappeared from central Europe > 400 years ago, but has persisted as a relict and slowly growing breeding population in Morocco, where c. 700 wild birds of all ages remain. In Algeria, the last confirmed breeding was in 1984; in Turkey the fully wild population disappeared in 1989, but a population remains in semi-wild conditions. In Syria a small population was rediscovered in 2002, only to subsequently decline to functional extinction. Restoration programmes have been initiated independently in several locations, with over 300 free-flying birds resulting from reintroduction projects in Austria, Germany, Spain and Turkey, to restore both sedentary and fully migratory populations. Maintaining current efforts in Morocco remains a high conservation priority.

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The Northern Bald Ibis is one of the rarest bird species, extinct in Europe for 400 years and critically endangered worldwide. The European Union-co-financed LIFE+ project "Reason for Hope - Reintroduction of the Northern Bald Ibis in Europe" aims to reintroduce the species in Europe (Germany, Austria, Italy). In order to obtain information on the genetic diversity within zoo colonies and the reintroduced population, 15 polymorphic microsatellite markers, specific for the Northern Bald Ibis, Geronticus eremita (Linnaeus, 1785), have been isolated from next-generation sequencing (Illumina MiSeq) and are described here. The microsatellite primers were tested in 30 individuals and measures of genetic variability were calculated. Values for the observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.393 to 0.867, while expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.573 to 0.718. Ten out of 15 loci were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and only one showed indication for the presence of null alleles. The newly developed PCR primers can be used to examine population genetic parameters, e.g. for future conservation genetic studies of this critically endangered bird species.

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