THE REARING OF THE WHITE-HEADED VULTURE IN OUR ZOO IS DECLARED TO BE AN INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS!

The beginning of this year surprised us by truly mesmerizing news – the first time ever in the history of Czech and Slovak zoological gardens we have reared a healthy fledgling of the white-headed vulture. This makes for an outstanding accomplishment.

The white-headed eagles firtsly appeared in the Zoo Zlín in 2014. Our bird breeders fiercely paid attention to matchmaking of our vulture couples to support the chances of their nesting. „The vultures belong to the most demanding bird species in the terms of rearing. It often means years and years of hard-work. In our case, we have waited for the first fertilized egg for the long eight years,“ claimed Roman Horský, the director of the Zoo Zlín. Nevertheless, the first triumph in the shape of the little vulture came not before 2024. „When a female of one of our vultures laid an egg in December we had hopes it was fertilized. To our joy our hopes came true and we placed the egg to an incubator. We were not willing to risk the egg being damaged. Moreover, earlier, in the fall of 2023, we had an opportunity to purchase one of the best incubators from Spain. It all came together like a symphony,“ added the director.

The fledgling of these white-headed vultures hatched by the end of january 2024. After several days in the incubator the breeders returned the baby to the parental care. Yet we had to face some difficulties – although the parents showed a great interest in their offspring they struggled feeding it properly. For the next five days the keepers opted for the supplemmentary feeding – twice per day they fed it tiny portions of raw meat and insides and the fledgling was quick to gain weight. Roman Horský finds this breeding success a huge reward for the endless efforts of the local breeders and zoologists. It establishes the claims of Zoo Zlín as one of the most successful vulture aviarists in the world. „Moreover,“ the director stated,“we are one of the very few zoological gardens breeding the fledglings the nature‘s way, with the parents, what enables the offsprings to be released to the wild“.

Nowadays, vultures belong to the most endangered bird species worldwide. Recently, in Asia there was a mass extinction of these beautiful feathered creatures due to the veterinary use of Diclofenac. The problem there ceased with the ban of use, but the issue moved to Africa, where is endangered 7 of 11 local vulture species. The species the most at risk is the white-backed vulture - in the past three decades its population decreased by 80% (caused by direct and indirect poisoning, habitat loss and fragmentation, habitat degradation, electrocution and collisions with power lines and wind turbines, reduced availability of natural food sources and direct persecution as well as the illegal harvesting for belief-based purposes). This was the trigger for the zoological garden in Zlín to support the rehabilitation center VULPRO based in South Africa.