Harteman Wildfowl Aviaries
Story & Mission
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Welcome to Harteman Wildfowl, a celebration to aviculture and bird conservation.
“Aviculture is the practice of keeping and breeding birds in a protected environment using controlled conditions, for pleasure, (semi-) scientific research and conservation purpose. Modern aviculture embraces new insighs on zootechniques, ethics, welfare and environment. Modern aviculture embraces the sharing of passion, knowledge and skills within the sector and beyond”
- Jan Harteman
About the author
Born in 1984, in the village of Lienden (the Netherlands) I grew up with lots of pets and animals at home. In the early 90's I got my first ducks to keep in a small aviary. As soon as 1996 I became a member of Aviornis International Netherlands.
Since childhood, I love to share my passion for breeding waterfowl and bird conservation. Therefore, I launched Harteman Wildfowl. The website you are looking at was established in 1998, to gather and share documentation and photography of the world's Anseriformes; ducks, geese, swans and screamers.
In 2005, I was honoured to receive the Hancock Memorial Award from the International Wild Waterfowl Association, for an outstanding contribution to the collective knowledge of waterfowl through field research, captive research, or photography.
I was able to participate the Sylvan Heights Avian Husbandry & Management Program in 2005, as part of the Lis Glassco Hudson Memorial Internship, conducted at Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Scotland Neck, North Carolina, USA.
To amplify my thoughts and mission I became board member of Aviornis International Netherlands in 2006, an international association for preserving birds in aviculture. From that time I have been responsible for maintaining the Aviornis website, developing promotionals and merchandise and organizing workshops.
From 2006 I am a teacher of animal husbandry and avian husbandry at Aeres MBO Barneveld, secondary vocational college for agriculture in Barneveld, the Netherlands. And along the way I gained experience at Vogelpark Avifauna, birdpark in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (2013-2014).
At Aeres MBO Barneveld I was responsible for receiving the institution's zoo license in 2017, to operate the campus in line with the EU Zoo Directive. Alongside the teaching I love organizing speaker sessions, symposia and other avicultural meetings.
Since October 2014 I have been a board member of the International Wild Waterfowl Association.
Our private avicultural collection is based in the village of Winssen (since 2018) and has focus on breeding globally threatened species, in coorporation with the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and the Ex-situ Programmes (EEP's) of several endangered species.
On the recommendation of EAZA and the Waterfowl Taxon Advisory Group, Harteman Wildfowl received a grant from Species360 in 2022, to become a member and manage its avian collection in ZIMS (Zoological Informational Management Software).
Please keep in mind that this website and the the avian collection is and has been maintained on a hobby basis. It is non-commercial, we do not offer our birds for sale.
Mission statement
Harteman Wildfowl Aviaires contributes to knowledge, education and conservation of the world's waterfowl. We contribute to EAZA’s Ex-situ Programmes (EEP); as well as directly contributing to ex-situ conservation by keeping and breeding threatened species in our private collection – keeping breeding records, gathering data and images about these species in my private collection – and educating the general public through my personal website, social media channels, avicultural magazines such as Aviornis International and the IUCN-SSC Threatened Waterfowl Specialists Group and EAZA's Waterfowl Taxon Advisory Group.
Being part of the EAZA's EEP studbooks, our facilities have been checked by the studbook keepers to verify the quality of the aviaries. Alongside we agreed to fulfil obligations like annual reporting and data sharing through ZIMS, medical research, post mortem research and keeping offspring at our location until the studbook keeper has found a suitable new collection. As a private aviculturist I am reaching out to these professional EEP programs and want to be a part of them, and species conservation in general, for the long run.
Above: endangered Madagascar teal (Anas bernieri) at our facilities
Above: One of our aviaries (2021)
Above: Part of the facilities (2023)
