17. August 2010
The reintroduction program for the Cinereous Vulture in the Pyrenees has reached an important milestone. The first chick that hatched in the wild since the reintroduction program began is about the to leave the nest.
The juvenile vulture is a female and called “Gala”. With about 110 days old, the young bird will leave the nest very soon. It was fitted with a satellite transmitter to learn more about it’s movements. This also would help in the case of the bird dying, for example from poisoning or shooting. Hopefully this will not happen and the young female can breed herself in a few years.
This project is very important for the conservation of Europe’s largest raptors.
For more, including a video, see here:
Gala se prepara para el abandono del nido
15. June 2010
Here is the text of a press release by the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF) about the sending of 31 Griffon Vultures from Majorca to Bulgaria.
Jovan Andevski, BVAP project coordinator of the VCF and Ivelin Ivano, conservation director of the Bulgarian NGO Green Balkans collect two griffon vultures for the transport
31 griffon vultures wait for their transport
(Campanet, 14th of June) Today, after weeks of organisation and preparation, the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF) sent 31 griffon vultures from Majorca to Bulgaria. The official departure event was held at 10 a.m. in Mallorca at the Mediterranean Wildlife Conservation Centre, headquarter of the VCF. The vultures are transported by the partner organization from Bulgaria
“Green Balkans” in a Mercedes Sprinter (minibus) with a trailer. The route begins by boat from Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona, will continue by land transiting France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and from Serbia arriving to Bulgaria. The journey will take at least two days and two nights, passing around 3000 km of distance! The official arrival event in Bulgaria will take place in Stara Zagora at the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Centre – Stara Zagora (run by Green Balkans) on 17/06/2010 at 11 a.m. These birds are destined for release at four designated areas in Bulgaria comprise of the national park Central Balkan, nature reserves Vrachanski Balkan, Blue Rocks and Kotlenska Stara Planina Mountain.
The 31 vultures that are being provided by the VCF have come from the recovery centres of Extremadura, Castilla y León and the Zoo from Jerez due to the good collaboration between VCF and the local ministries of the Spanish autonomous communities.
This is the second shipment of vultures to Bulgaria after the first one of 18 individuals sent in March 2009. The vultures transported with the first transport are placed in the adaptation aviaries at sites where they adapt to local conditions before being released. The same destiny is awaiting the “new” vultures after there arrival in Bulgaria. The project foresees that within the next 5 years, about 150-200 griffon vultures will be released in Bulgaria.
This activity is within the framework of the LIFE+ project “Recovery of the Populations of Large European Vultures in Bulgaria”.
For successful implementation the project foresees activities that will reduce any risks or threats to their lives such as the major threat to this species, the illegal use of poison in the nature. Other activities include providing food on the artificial feeding sites, monitoring of the existing population and of the reintroduced one as well as protecting their habitat.
All this project activities are part of the long-term strategy of the Balkan Vulture Action Plan (BVAP) initiated in 2002 by the VCF. BVAP includes 8 countries and more then 30 local NGOs working on the implementation of the vulture conservation activities.
The main goal of the project is to restore the population of the griffon vultures in the Balkan range whose connectedness will link that population with colonies in Serbia and others in Western Europe. This way, we will create an undisturbed link between Europe, Africa and Asia.
The project is only possible due to the collaboration of the many local and international organisations involved as Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF), Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). Local project partners and implementations of the project are: FWFF-Bulgaria, Green Balkans-Bulgaria, BPPB and BEPF.
For further information please check the www.balkanvultures.net
Download the press release as a PDF:
140610_VCF PressRelease_GriffonVulture Transport.pdf
Many thanks to Juan José Sánchez Artés for sending me the press release.
13. June 2010
A new interview is available, this time with Fulvio Genero about vultures in Italy.
Interview with Fulvio Genero about vultures in Italy
Fulvio talks about the current situation of Vultures in Italy, the historical development, reintroduction programs, threats to vultures. He also gives an outlook on the future of those great birds in Italy.
Fulvio has also written an article in the wonderful new book about European vultures:
New vulture book: Vultures, feeding stations and sanitary legislation: a conflict and its consequences from the perspective of conservation biology
30. May 2010
SEO/Birdlife Spain has recently published the results from census of Golden Eagles, Egyptian Vultures, Osprey, Griffon Vultures and Peregrine Falcons in Spain in 2008.
To gather all those date, a huge effort by many people was needed. SEO publishes all the results in free e-books (in PDF format).
Click on the cover of each PDF to download it.
Golden Eagle
Osprey
Egyptian Vulture
Griffon Vulture
Peregrine Falcon
The reports are very detailed, for example the one on the Golden Eagle has 189 pages.
Other results from earlier censuses can be found here (incl. Bonelli’s Eagle, Cinereous Vulture, several harrier species, Eleonora’s Falcon and many other birds):
http://www.seo.org/programa_seccion_ficha.cfm?idPrograma=3&idArticulo=225
The new results are very interesting. For example, for the Golden Eagle, the census found 1,553 definite pairs and 216 likely pairs which gives a Spanish population of 1,769 pairs. This makes Spain very important for the conservation of the Golden Eagle in Europe.
5. May 2010
As GREFA writes, the reintroduction program for the Cinereous Vulture in the Pyrenees is going very well. This April, the first chick hatched. This is the first chick in the Pyrenees for more than 100 years.
The goal of this reintroduction project is to create a bridge between the colonies in Spain (mostly in southern and western Spain) and the reintroduced population in France and other European populations.
In 2010, SEO/Birdlife Spain has elected the Cinereous Vulture as the Bird of the Year 2010 in Spain.
At the moment, the Pyrenees in Catalonia are the only region in Europe where all four European raptor species breed close to each other.
The first chick hatching in the Pyrenees is great news for vulture conservation in Europe and another great milestone in the success story of the conservation the Cinereous Vulture, Europe’s largest raptor.
More information (in Spanish) incl. a video that shows the nest with the chick can be found here:
Nace un Buitre Negro en Boumort
3. May 2010
Euronatur has published the latest edition of their newsletter about migratory birds. The newsletter also covers species that are not migratory.
This new edition is currently only available in German. It covers many raptor species including Bearded Vulture, Cinereous Vulture, Greater Spotted Eagle, Eastern Imperial Eagle, White-tailed Eagle and Saker Falcon.
Click here to go to the latest edition of this newsletter:
http://www.euronatur.org/Ausgabe-16-April-2010.1007.0.html
22. April 2010
Eastern Imperial Eagle family breakfast.
© Picture: Dobromir Dobrinov/Green Balkans
A new interview is available:
Interview with Simeon Marin from Green Balkans about the conservation of Eastern Imperial Eagles, Lesser Kestrels and Cinereous Vultures in Bulgaria.
The interview covers the work of Green Balkans for a project called “Conservation measures for target species of the EU Birds Directive – Lesser Kestrel, Black Vulture, and Imperial Eagle in their main habitats in Bulgaria”
All three species are threatened across Europe and in Bulgaria, currently only the Eastern Imperial Eagle is a regular, but rare, breeding species.
Green Balkans works to increase the number of the Eastern Imperial Eagle and hopes that both the Lesser Kestrel and the Cinereous Vulture will come back as a regular breeding species to Bulgaria.
Reed the interview to learn more about this important project and what Green Balkans is doing to protect those three amazing raptor species.
18. April 2010
Eurasian Griffon Vulture, Spain, December 2007, © Markus Jais
After a few Griffon Vultures escaped before the planned date for a reintroduction in Bulgaria, the birds already started the first breeding attempts in the Kresna Gorge in Bulgaria – after an absense of 60 years.
Emilian Stoynov from the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna wrote on the Balkan Vultures mailing list.
One pair is actively bringing sticks and is building nest and copulation was several times observed. It seems they will soon lay an egg. The nest is easily visible from the road in the gorge.
There is also second pair showing breeding behavior and it seems it is already incubating. But the breeding of this second pair is only indirectly documented, based on the presence of different birds at the feeding site and obvious changes of incubating partners.
There is also evidence for even third breeding pair. However this needs further confirmation.
The reintroduction project for the Griffon Vulture is a important step towards securing the future of this amazing species in Europe.
For more information, please visit the website of the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna:
http://fwff.org
17. April 2010
SEO/Birdlife Spain has declared the “Buitre Negro” (Black Vulture) as the “Ave del Año 2010″ (Bird of the Year 2010).
The Cinereous Vulture is the largest raptor in Europe and most European pairs breed in Spain. There, according to SEO, the population has increased from less than 200 pairs to more than 2,000 pairs today.
But there are still threats to the species like poisoning or lack of food.
To find out more about the conservation program for the Cinerous Vulture, visit the website for the Bird of the Year 2010 in Spain:
http://www.seo.org/programa_intro.cfm?idPrograma=88
There is a video and lot’s of information (in Spanish).
16. March 2010
I just published a new interview with Ivaylo Angelov about the Egyptian Vulture in Bulgaria.
Interview with Ivaylo Angelov about the Egyptian Vulture in Bulgaria.
The species shows a dramatic decline in Bulgaria but the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) is working very hard to make sure the species has a future in Bulgaria. Make sure to read the interview.
