The declaration from the recently held workshop to develop an international species action plan for the Egyptian vulture eastern flyway – covering the breeding populations in Balkans, Turkey, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East, and their respective flyway to winter in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula- has now been published (see below).
The 70+ representatives of Governments, local authorities, nature conservation organizations and universities from 33 countries have identified that this endangered vulture is mostly at risk due to the following priority threats:
-
poisoning, due to persecution of predators or inappropriate use of agricultural chemicals and veterinary drugs (such as Diclofenac) and the use of lead shot;
-
insufficient amounts of accessible food caused by habitat degradation and undesired side effects of sanitation practices necessary for maintaining human health;
-
electrocution on power line poles and collision with wind turbines and power lines;
-
disturbance at breeding sites;
-
illegal harvesting (for example for use in traditional medicine and to meet demand from collectors).
The meeting was organized by the LIFE+ project “The Return of the Neophron” (http://www.lifeneophron.eu/) and the Coordinating Unit (CU) of the Raptors MoU under the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS), and produced a flyway action plan that will hopefully contribute to more effective, coordinated, and widespread conservation efforts focused on this species, which is declining almost everywhere in the range.
Declaration from the workshop to develop Flyway Action Plan for the Egyptian vultures in the Balkans, Turkey, Caucasus & Central Asia EVFAP_Declaration.pdf Adobe Acrobat Document 422.3 KB Download
