Do you want to see first-hand how we reintroduce young Cinereous vultures into the wild? Join us next Tuesday in Kotel, Bulgaria, and experience this yourself.
The Green Balkans are organising this event as part of the Vultures Back To LIFE project. The project aims to establish a nesting population of the Cinereous vulture in Bulgaria, through the reintroduction of the species in the Balkan Mountain range in Bulgaria.
The Cinereous Vultures we will release
The Vultures back to LIFE team will release two Cinereous Vultures during the upcoming event. Both birds were donated by the Planckendael zoo (Belgium). Both birds are male, and hatched in 2019 – one chick is from France (Parc des Oiseaux) but was then transferred to be raised by a foster pair in Planckendael, and the other hatched in Planckendael. The Plackendael team will transport the birds to Bulgaria, which will arrive on the 5th of August and will then be transferred at the artificial nest in Kotel, near the Kotel aviary on the 6th of August.
Releasing the Cinereous vultures
The Vultures Back To LIFE team is excited to invite you to an official event next Monday releasing four Cinereous Vultures in Bulgaria! The project will release the birds using the so-called hacking technique. This involves placing a young Cinereous vulture in an artificial nest in a wild site, where the chick is fed and monitored, without human contact, until the young bird has fledged and leaves the release site.
The event will take place on Tuesday 6 August at 10 am at the aviary in the ‘Kotlenska planina’ SPA, Kotel, Bulgaria.
Apart from observing the release of the young Cinereous vultures, you will also get the chance to see wild and released vultures at the feeding site! Have a look at the event programme below for all the details.
Event programme
10:00 Arrival at the Meeting point: 42.924047°, 26.467835°.
10:00 – 11:00 A few words about the project from the team and guests.
11:00 – 12:30 Welcoming the Cinereous vultures and taking them to the artificial nest.
12:30 – 13:30 A short break.
13:30 – 14:30 Observing wild and marked vultures at the feeding station. Please bring your binoculars if you have any so that everyone will get to see the birds.
14:30 – 15:30 Everyone will have a chance to speak to the project team and ask their questions.
For additional information about the event, contact the project team at rsurcheva@greenbalkans.org.
Vultures Back to LIFE
Led by the wildlife conservation charity Green Balkans, with activities also implemented by the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna, and bringing together partners from Bulgaria, Spain, Germany, and us here at the VCF, Vultures Back to LIFE aims to reintroduce the cinereous or Eurasian black vulture to Bulgaria. The team will transfer and release around 60 birds, some from captive-breeding, but mostly coming from wildlife rehabilitation centres in Extremadura (Spain) into the wild in Bulgaria as well as creating supplementary feeding stations and improving populations of wild herbivores, improving the nesting conditions and creating artificial nest sites and tackling some of the major threats to vultures in the country such as insulating electricity pylons and illegal use of poison in the nature.
