The ancient Egyptians venerated a number of deities in animal form but rarely has that veneration been of much benefit to these species in modern Egypt. Most are extinct. Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess, was venerated as the daughter of Ra but the Lion disappeared from here centuries ago. Taweret, who looked over women during childbirth, was portrayed with the head of a Hippopotamus but the hippo died out at least 200 years ago through hunting and habitat destruction. Sobek was worshipped as the crocodile deity, a symbol of royal power, but the Nile Crocodile has been wiped out north of the High Dam. Thoth, represented as a baboon or an ibis, was master of the scribes, but the present day Sacred Baboon and Sacred Ibis have both disappeared from modern Egypt. The good news for one of these species, reported in Nature Conservation Egypt (NCE)’s first e-newsletter www.nceegypt.org, is that the Sacred Ibis might just be on the verge of returning.

According to NCE, French NGO Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) under the auspices of BirdLife International is looking to reintroduce the Sacred Ibis into Egypt. France has a growing feral population of the Sacred Ibis originating from escaped captive birds. The plan is to release a number of these birds into areas of suitable habitat here. NCE is to make detailed studies of the birds’ current breeding habitat in neighboring Sudan and then to propose suitable areas for release back into the wild here.

The Sacred Ibis is a heron-like bird, 70–80 centimeters long, all white with black legs, head and neck, black tips to the primaries and a mantle of lacy black plumes on the lower back. The bill is long and curves downward. It is widely portrayed in ancient tomb and temple friezes in portraiture and as a hieroglyph, and also in statuary. One of my favorite pieces is a wonderful, and wonderfully lifelike, statue of a Sacred Ibis in gilded wood and silver currently in the Egyptian Museum. It is part of a sarcophagus that would have contained a mummified ibis. Ancient Egyptians, in veneration of the god Thoth, mummified their ibises in industrial quantities. Catacombs at sites such as Tuna Al-Gebel near modern Minya and at the Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara are piled with literally hundreds of thousands, even millions of ibis mummies and given the quantities involved, it seems likely that the species was reared in aviaries. Today similarly large quantities of ibis statuettes, ranging from the exquisite to complete tat, can be seen in Khan el-Khalili.

The Sacred Ibis was apparently still common in Egypt in the early nineteenth century, with the population centered on Lake Manzala. However it then seems to have gone into dramatic decline. The Birds of Egypt, edited by Steve Goodman and Peter Meininger, documents an individual shot in the Delta near Tanta in 1864 and another near Damietta in 1877. The last accepted records from Egypt come from Al-Tor in South Sinai in 1886 and 1891 probably concerning stray birds from Sudan. A clutch of four eggs in the British Museum labeled Damietta and taken in 1894 are of questionable origin. And then, save for a smattering of unconfirmed and often dubious records, there is nothing. Sacred or not, the Sacred Ibis seems to have disappeared from modern Egypt. Today it is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa (I have seen flocks as far north as Khartoum in Sudan) as well as an isolated population in the marshlands of southern Iraq. The potential reintroduction of the Sacred Ibis in Egypt is an exciting prospect, though it would be a long, difficult and expensive process and it is not made clear in the NCE report whether the French birds proposed for reintroduction are of the aethiopicus subspecies to which all Egyptian records refer. That’s important.

While the Sacred Ibis has disappeared, another species, the Glossy Ibis, can still be seen. It is a somewhat smaller bird at 55–65 centimeters long, sharing the long, downward-curved bill of the Sacred Ibis, but uniformly glossed dark black-brown all over. Individuals and small flocks will be passing through on their way to sub-Saharan wintering grounds through November and a few will stay here through the winter. I have seen wintering birds at the exquisitely beautiful lake in the shadow of the Dashour pyramids and at Bilbais. It is probable that the species now breeds here too.

A third ibis, the Northern Bald Ibis or Waldrapp has gone the way of the Sacred Ibis. It was last recorded in Egypt in 1962. Sadly, the Northern Bald Ibis is now one of the world’s rarest birds. In historical times it ranged over much of southern Europe and North Africa but has been reduced to a few small colonies in Morocco and a single colony of captive-bred birds in Turkey. Very recently it has also been found in Syria. It too was depicted extensively in the ancient Egyptian tombs and temples, mainly as a hieroglyph. Given its perilously low numbers, it is unlikely to be found here again; though, as there have been recent reports of migrants in Yemen it could conceivably turn up here in winter. It resembles a large glossy ibis but the unfeathered head, legs and bill are all red.

On a more personal note I have had some upsetting news. I recently learned of the death this past summer of Ibrahim Helmy, one of Egypt’s finest and most respected naturalists, after a battle with cancer. Others will write of Ibrahim’s distinguished career as a scientist, specifically a medical zoologist with the US Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) here in Cairo — contributions that were recognized, along with his many other achievements, with an honorary doctorate from the American University in Cairo in 2000 — but I knew him as a natural historian. I first met Ibrahim many years ago when I was assigned to write his profile for Egypt Today (then Cairo Today). I arranged a series of interviews with him and was invited to his modest apartment in Heliopolis. It was a life changing encounter — and I do not use the phrase lightly or glibly — in so many ways. Firstly Ibrahim’s home was, for me, like an Aladdin’s cave. Memorabilia from travels to every corner of the country and beyond lined the walls, spilled out of cabinets and crowded shelves. His desk was piled with specimens, with rocks and shells, skulls and pelts — like many a modern naturalist, Ibrahim was a reformed hunter. It was fascinating and eye opening. Could Egypt really have such an extraordinary natural heritage, such biodiversity? Secondly, with his customary generosity Ibrahim gave me a copy of his book, co-written with Dale Osborne, also of NAMRU, entitled The Contemporary Land Mammals of Egypt (including Sinai). It opened my eyes to the sheer diversity of Egypt’s mammal fauna and also to how little we know about it and how rapidly it is disappearing. Its well-thumbed pages have been an invaluable reference over the past two decades and the springboard and inspiration for my own field guide. He showed me his exquisite entomological plates he had been working on, plates true to the finest tradition of technical illustration, scientifically accurate and yet also aesthetically stunning. But perhaps most poignantly, Ibrahim was a man of immense courage. In the mid 1980s he was involved in a near fatal accident when his jeep drove over a landmine. The resulting explosion left him with horrific injuries including the loss of one of his arms and long-term damage to his eyes. When I interviewed him, he was already talking about getting back out into the field and he was speaking enthusiastically about various projects, including a natural history museum, which he had in the pipeline. He was inspiring.

The friend and colleague who gave me the news of Ibrahim’s passing mentioned his exquisitely beautiful insect plates and suggested the possibility of getting them published. It would be a fine, fine tribute. My sincere condolences go to Ibrahim’s wife Samia and to his family. et