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Hatching of Bearded Vulture eggs in the Captive Breeding network begins

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Tempranillo the first chick hatched at the Guadalentín Specialised Breeding Centre in Andalucia

Back in mid December 2018 the first egg of the Bearded Vulture breeding season was laid by a pair in the Guadalentín Specialised Breeding Centre in Andalucia, Spain, and now at the centre the first hatching has happened.

First hatching of the season

Early hours of the morning of Tuesday 29 January a chick hatched from their egg at the Guadalentín Specialised Breeding Centre without any intervention and weighed 138.5g. This young chick is the offspring of the season’s first laying pair, Joseph and Keno. The young chick was assigned an official code, BG1014, but the staff named him Tempranillo, after the grape variety common across the Iberian Peninsula

A false start

A young chick emerging from the egg
A young chick emerging from the egg

On Monday it appeared that the first hatching of the season had begun from a clutch of two eggs laid by a pair in Armenia Caucasus Wildlife Refuge managed by the Foundation Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets . The hatching of the first egg begun on Sunday, however, it would seem the young chick was having trouble and had died during the hatching. The second chick was also hatching from their egg and was again having trouble so the staff intervened and removed the egg and helped the chick but unfortunately within 24 hours the chick was too weak and did not survive. Is located in the

Update on the clutches laid in the 2018/19 breeding season 

There are 42 pairs of Bearded Vultures laying eggs in our Captive Breeding Network out of a total of  174 birds. So far this breeding season 32 pairs have began breeding and 53 eggs have been laid. Across the network most of the pairs are currently incubating eggs including at all the specialised breeding centres Austria’s Richard Faust Breeding Centre and Spain’s Vallcalent and Guadalentín Specialised Breeding Centres and the smaller centres at France’s Asters Conservatoire D’Espaces Naturels De Haute-Savoie and Goldau Tierpark in Switzerland and most of the zoos.

The Bearded Vulture Captive Breeding Network

The specialised breeding centre at the Asters Conservatoire D'Espaces Naturels De Haute-Savoie
The specialised breeding centre at the Asters Conservatoire D’Espaces Naturels De Haute-Savoie

This network of 37 mostly European zoos, five specialized breeding centres and two private collections, that are home to the 175 birds are part of the Bearded Vulture European Endangered Species Programme organised under EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria). This captive breeding programme has been the foundation for the successful reintroduction of the bearded vulture across Europe. Since starting in 1978 we have coordinated this collaboration of different organisations which aims to restore the bearded vulture to its former range across Europe.

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