A new paper researching the Dietary habits of Egyptian vultures in Sicily has been published recently. The study was based on the analysis of prey remains collected in nests from 2005 to 2009.
More than 50% of prey items were mammals (predominantly Wild Rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus), 35% were birds and 10% were domestic poultry. Compared with similar studies done in 1981 and 2002, there were significant differences in diet composition, with an observed reduction of livestock remains and the increase of wild medium size mammals and birds in the diet.
The authors suggest that supplementary feeding stations would probably benefit population recovery through increase in survival and breeding success.
You can download the paper below.
Photo: Bruno Berthémy/VCF
Diet of Egyptian Vulture in Sicily, Di_Vittorio et al 2017 Di_Vittorio_et_al_2017_Vie_Milieu_EV_Die Adobe Acrobat Document 932.8 KB Download
