Beginning of the project: 2009
In this project, the participation of Zlín Zoo is not financial; Zlín Zoo actively participates in vulture reproduction. Up to this date, we have handed over 26 self-reared vultures to be released into the wild.
Our collaboration with a team of bulgarian-spanish wildlife protectors from the Green Balkans organization begun in 2009, when our keepers successfully reared the very first chicken of a griffon vulture in the history of the zoo. Thanks to this achievement, we became one of a few European zoological gardens breeding vultures the natural way. Rearings following the former success enabled reintroduction of the birds of prey to the wildlife on a larger scale.
To Bulgaria, four vulture species are native: bearded vulture, griffon vulture, black vulture and Egyptian vulture. Due to poaching, use of poisons on wolves and abandonment of traditional grazing livestock two of the four species have gone almost extinct there – the presumptions are there is one to two breeding couples of black vultures left, but no nests have been found. Coming to bearded vultures, its sightings are reported very rarely. At first, the Green Balkans organization focused on releasing rescued griffon vultures back to the wild, still preserved Bulgarian mountains. Over the years, the organization has developed a national strategy for restoration of the nesting population of vultures.
In March 2017, the Bulgarian team got in touch with us sharing wonderful news: a female griffon vulture we released into the mountains in November 2012 created a pair with a released vulture from Spain, laying an egg. It was the very first nesting activity of birds of prey in the Central Balkan after 50 years! Due to the fact vultures are not exactly demanding species in the terms of nest-building, she laid it on ground. To keep it safe, the protectors transported it to the hatchery in their center in Stara Zagora. To much relief, the egg was really fertilized. Once the chicken hatched, it was placed under a couple of foster vulture parents, who reared it successfully.
Encouraged by this success, we have handed over also six Egyptian vultures and one cinereous vulture to boost the reproduction efforts further.
Beginning of the project: 2015
Sadly, Bulgaria is not the only country being in a desperate need of restoration of the vulture population. In August 2015, we have handed over one Egyptian vulture to be released in Tuscany. This species was once found alla long Italy’s Tyrrhenian coast from Liguria to Calabria. In 2018, only eight to nine pairs remained. The species suffered the massive decline of its population due to poaching, disturbance of nesting sites, reduction in their food supply and illegal poisoning. With the species on the brink of extinction, population restoration efforts took place.
The release of our vulture was performed by our colleagues from Prague Zoo, coordinators of EEP, The European Endangered Species Programme, and patronaged by CERM Endangered Raptors Centre, a center for research, transfer and higher education in Florence, Italy.
Ahead of their release, the vultures are equipped with GPS transmitters allowing the researchers to tackle the lack of safe food resources by managing supplementary feeding stations in sensitive areas and mitigating other threats.
