A rehabilitated griffon vulture was tagged and released this weekend in Sardinia, at the same time that a workshop about the project actions was held in Bosa, to pay tribute to Helmar Schenk, one of the pioneers of vulture conservation in Sardinia, whose efforts eventually developed into today´s LIFE Griffone project – “Implementation of best practices to rescue Griffon vultures in Sardinia”
This project aims to improve the conservation status of griffon vultures in Sardinia, and is led by the University of Sassari in partnership with the City of Bosa, the Ente Foreste della Sardegna and the Corpo Forestale di Vigilanza Ambientale. The regional Departments of Environmental Protection and Health, the regional natural Park of Porto Conte, the Junta de Andalucia and the VCF also collaborate, mainly through technical expertise and advice, with the VCF responsible for securing and transporting the griffon vultures that will be released in Sardinia.
The main actions of the project include
• the creation of a network of small farm supplementary feeding sites to mitigate the food shortage;
• the establishment of a trained dog unit to combat the use of poisoned baits;
• The reinforcement of the wildlife rehabilitation center in Bonassai
• the release of 60 griffon vultures that entered rehabilitation centers in Spain, to restock the small population in Sardinia.
This weekend a 3 year old female griffon vulture that had been found weakened in Sardinia was tagged and released within the project, in collaboration with the VCF – see photos. The bird was named Helmar.
The VCF has already transported the first 17 griffon vultures to be released – they are now in their acclimatization aviary, and other birds will be tagged soon. This will be important to confirm if griffons sue the new supplementary feeding sites, their preferred foraging areas and also any eventual mortality.
You can download the programme of the workshop below.
Photos: VCF
Workshop LIFE Under the Griffon wings – Bosa (Sardinia) – 17. 12.2016 Programm_Locandina Workshop 17 dicembre. Adobe Acrobat Document 990.2 KB Download
