Case report of Oriental Stork’s nest relocation

A guest post by Dr. Kim Sukyung, head of reintroduction research team, Yesan Oriental Stork Park

Since the globally Endangered Oriental Stork Ciconia boyciana 황새 was lost to South Korea as a breeding species in 1971, the Korea National University of Education and Yesan Stork Park have been increasing the number of storks living in the wild, first through artificial breeding (since 1996) and then through reintroduction programs (since 2015).

As of July 2025, it is estimated that 242 Oriental Storks are living in South Korea, and 24 pairs are breeding in the wild nationwide. Because Oriental Storks naturally breed in tall trees, they also use stork nesting towers, transmission towers, utility poles, and building roofs for nesting.

Oriental Stork nests on transmission towers, utility poles, and roofs are all unsafe and are in places where they cannot breed continuously, provoking many complaints and expressions of concern. To solve this problem, Yesan Stork Park has attempted to physically move nests to purpose-built nesting towers. The number of cases where they have been moved successfully is increasing. One successful nest relocation has been conducted in Asan City, two in Yesan-gun, one in Taean-gun, one in Buan-gun, and one in Gochang-gun, and there are now four cases where storks abandoned their original breeding sites and nested on the stork nest tower the following year.

The nest relocation method comprises moving the chicks to a new nest tower when they are around 45 days of age and removing the original nest. After relocation, the parents first fly to the new nest tower within 30-500m of the original nest after five to 21 hours. They then mainly used the new nest tower, or when the nest was full, they occasionally rested at the original nest site nearby.