SmartBirds
Last week the team of BSPB placed 6 young Egyptian Vultures in the adaptation aviary in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria which we call “The Egyptian Vulture school”. All individuals underwent detailed veterinary examination by the vets of the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Center of Green Balkans (WRBC) and were ringed with metal rings for individual identification.
The candidates for admission in the “school” were initially 7 but veterinary examination revealed that one of the individuals has problem with its feathers and it was decided that it will stay in the WRBC for further treatment and recovery. The other 6 young vultures were in good health and were transported by the team of BSPB to the adaptation aviary which is placed at a vulture feeding station in the Eastern Rhodopes. Three of these young vultures were rescued from their nests in Bulgaria last year and were kept in the WRBC while the other three are captive-bred and donate by Prague Zoo and Ostrava Zoo in the Czech Republic.
The newcomers will spend over two months in the Egyptian Vulture “school” where they will be adapting to the local conditions, observe the behavior of the wild individuals visiting the feeding station, socializing, learning how to roost on a tree and to feed on various food items until they are ready to be released in the wild. During this period the vultures will be closely observed by the experts from BSPB. They will have no contact with people to avoid habituation and food will be only provided through special openings in the aviary. When they are ready to graduate the school the team of BSPB will released them into the wild.
HERE you can watch livestream from the Egyptian Vulture school.
The Egyptian Vulture is among the most threatened raptor species in Europa and Bulgaria holds a population of only 27 breeding pairs. The Egyptian Vulture Reinforcement program started in 2018 and until now 4 released individuals have already formed pairs in the wild, successfully supplementing the wild population. The Reinforcement Program for the Egyptian Vultures in Bulgaria is led by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds/BirdLife Bulgaria in close collaboration with Green Balkans and the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) for the Egyptian Vulture coordinated by Antonin Vaidl from the Prague Zoo.
The Restocking programme has been carried out under the “From Iron Curtain to Green Belt: restoring ecological networks in Southeast Bulgaria” project, funded by the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme (ELSP) that is managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative – a collaboration between the Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge of The Old Schools and leading internationally-focused biodiversity conservation organisations. The University and the ELSP are supported by Arcadia – a charitable fund of Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing.
