Alain Crivelli has been the Chair of the Pelican Specialist Group of SSC for the Old World since 1978. His work focuses on conservation biology and particularly threatened species (bird, fish, terrapins and amphibians) within the Mediterranean region. Alain has worked extensively on colonial waterbirds, freshwater and brackish fish and ecosystem management.

With financial support of Tour du Valat Foundation, the Pelican Specialist Group has continued since 1978 to get the best picture possible of the pelicans in the Palearctic. In the old world, contrasting figures on pelicans have been observed: on one side, in south-eastern Europe Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) breeding colonies are almost all increasing significantly and Great white pelicans (P. onocrotalus) are more or less stable; on the other side, in the former USSR, many reports are showing that the situation of pelican breeding colonies is getting worse and numbers of breeding pairs are going down for both species. The reasons for this downward trend are mainly unstable political structure in these countries and fast degradation of wetland habitat. A comprehensive update of the status and knowledge on both species breeding in the Palearctic has been published in 2000 with the collaboration of our corresponding members.

The most challenging project for the Pelican Group for the following years will be a re-introduction project of Dalmatian pelicans in Croatia that was launched in October 2001 during a meeting at Zagreb. A steering committee to handle the re-introduction has been formed with Croatians and foreign experts. The project is being supervised by the Institute for Ornithology in Croatia (Dr Jasmina Muzinic). Since the meeting in Zagreb the project has made slow progress, mainly due to a lack of funds. Thanks to a grant from the San Diego Zoo (USA) a feasibility study has been undertaken in order to choose the location for this reintroduction (three potential sites have been chosen). This feasibility study is ongoing and will include a sociological study on how local people perceive such an introduction in their wetland.