The TV channel ARTE – available on many cable packages – has aired a spectacular 52-min documentary on the return of vultures to southern France, including the reintroduction of the bearded vulture in the Pre-Alps and the Grands Causses, done through our own project LIFE GYPCONNECT, in the last few days. The documentary will be repeated in the same channel next Tuesday 28th November at 7h15am (Central European Time), and again on Monday 4th December at 7h15.
Led by the League pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO), in partnership with the VCF, Vautours en Baronnies, Centre National d’ Informations Toxicologiques Vétérinaires, Electricité Réseau Distribution France, Parc National des Cévennes, Parc Naturel Régional du Vercors, LPO Aude, and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie – Paris 6, the LIFE GYPCONNECT project aims to establish a breeding population of bearded vultures in the Massif Central, as well as in the Pre-Alps, through reintroduction, and promoting dispersal movements between the Alps and the Pyrenean populations. In 2016-2017 13 young bearded vultures were released in the project area, 6 in the Grands Causses/Massif Central, 5 in Baronnies – the first time that bearded vultures were released in this pre-alpine chain, and 2 in Vercors. The project also includes the establishment of supplementary feeding points to try to attract bearded vultures from the Pyrenees to cross the Aude valley.
