Nature’s clean-up crew; vultures do the dirty work of clearing up after death, helping to keep ecosystems healthy.
This is how the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF) refers to these scavengers, who play a crucial role in the environments in which they live.
The rarest of these birds in Europe is the bearded vulture, also known as the lammergeier. It suffered badly from persecution in the 19th and 20th centuries, but thanks to successful conservation and reintroduction programmes, the European population is on the rise.
One of the main efforts has centred on Spain, where numbers had plummeted. The last remaining stronghold of the bearded vulture in Iberia in the 1980s was the Pyrenees, in the mountains of Huesca and Lleida provinces.
Described by the VCF as ‘unmistakable’, both for its ‘breathtaking features and its unique behaviour’, the bearded vulture disappeared from the skies of Andalucía in 1986 due to illegal poisoning and human disturbance of the nesting sites.
It was absent from the Valencia region for nearly a century.
But action has been taken to ensure this giant bird populates the interior of the Iberian Peninsula once again; and initiatives are underway in Andalucía, Asturias (Picos de Europa) and the Valencia region.
Sky’s the limit in Andalucía
The Andalucía regional government teamed up with the VCF and the former Fundación Gypaetus to reintroduce the species, with the project starting in 1996. The area chosen was the vast protected area of Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas, one of the largest wildernesses on the Iberian Peninsula.
The first captive-bred birds were freed in 2006.
“Nine years after the first releases, Toño and Blimunda formed the first pair and began breeding, marking an important milestone for the comeback of bearded vultures,” notes the VCF.
“Their attempts were successful, producing the first wild-born fledgling in Andalucía, named Esperanza, after 32 years since the species disappearance.”
A total of 93 bearded vultures have been released in the region to date in order ‘to bring the species back from extinction’, according to the regional government; 90 of these birds were introduced in the Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas natural park and the neighbouring Sierra de Castril. Then in summer 2024, three young bearded vultures were released in hacking areas constructed in high caves in the Sierra Nevada.
The regional government hopes that this will lead to an expansion of the range of the bird as they have a ‘built-in ability to identify and return to the area where they were raised’.
“This considerably increases the probability that they will choose this area (Sierra Nevada) to settle and reproduce in the future,” noted a regional government spokesperson.
Their presence will ‘help to restore an ecological balance that has been lost for decades’.
In early 2020, the VCF took over management of the bearded vulture captive-breeding centre of Guadalentín on contract from the Andalucía regional government.
It is the most important centre in the European programme, which specialises in adopting and raising chicks from other centres and zoos, notes the VCF.
It provides several nestlings for release every year to different locations around Europe, including Spain.
Castellón calling
The Maestrazgo area of Valencia was historically a breeding site for bearded vultures, but they became extinct in the region in the early 1900s.
The project to reintroduce them began in 2018 with the aim of establishing a breeding population that will bridge the populations in the Pyrenees in the north and Andalucía in the south, explains the VCF.
This area is regularly visited by birds from the Andalucian population.
Alòs and Amic were the first young captive-bred bearded vultures released back in the summer of 2018 at specially constructed nests in the mountains of the Tinença de Benifassà natural park in Castellón province.
Since then two or three young bearded vultures bred in captivity have been introduced each year into the hacking areas of the park. The chicks are fed there and generally start to fly after around a month.
Former councillor for the ecological transition in Valencia, Mireia Mollà explained: “With this technique the chicks associate the place in which they were released as their birthplace and when they reach reproduction age, which is between six and 10 years old, they select these areas to rear their young, even though they will have travelled far and wide in their younger years.”
It was in 2023 that park staff noted that the first of the bearded vultures had started to return to the Tinença de Benifassà.
The VCF explained that as part of the project, to better understand bird movements around the region, the released birds have been monitored using small satellite transmitters fitted to their backs.
These have showed that three of the birds have not survived into adulthood.
In January 2024, the regional government revealed that two of the vultures had returned to settle in the natural park.
Regional director for the environment, Raúl Mérida reported that these males had arrived from La Rioja and the Pyrenees respectively.
He said the fact that they had come back during the breeding season was significant because it indicated they have earmarked their potential territories.
Bearded vulture facts
The bearded vulture searches for food by soaring to high altitudes over mountain gorges and ridges, while scanning the ground below for carrion. Sometimes it can be seen hovering in position over a cliff or ridge.
It is the only European raptor that regularly feeds on the bones and bone marrow of dead animals but they have no teeth to break them up.
Instead, if they have a bone that’s too big to swallow, they drop it onto rocks from great heights.
Hence their name in Spanish; the ‘quebrantahuesos’, which means bone-breaker.
This specialization reduces its competition with other vultures and carrion birds.
Around 85% of its diet is made up of bones, usually of mountain herbivores such ibex, chamois, deer and domestic animals like sheep.
The VCF estimates that in 2022 there were 465 breeding pairs in Europe.
This vulture has a wingspan of between 2.5m and 2.85m.
Read about Joseph and Marie Antoinette – ‘a bearded vulture pair like no other’ at https://4vultures.org/blog/joseph-and-marie-antoinette-a-bearded-vulture-pair-like-no-other/
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