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Watch: Griffon Vulture chick hatching in Green Balkans’ Centre for the second time in history!

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The parents looking after the newly hatched chick (c) Green Balkans

The baby population at the Green Balkans’ Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Center has increased with one more chick – this time a Griffon Vulture. The large vultures breeding programme, including the Griffon Vultures and Cinereous Vultures in the Centre, is supported by the Vultures Back to LIFE project.

Hatching

In the first hours after laying, the female was carefully incubating the egg. On the second day, the male took over, and from that time onwards, he was more active in incubating. After 53 days of diligent incubation, on 7 April 2020, the Griffon Vulture egg pipped, and on the next day, the chick managed to hatch successfully with a little help from its parents. During the hatching, the parents were observing the process, and impatiently awaiting the arrival of their chick!

Taking care of the chick

The father, Belcho, has proven himself once again as a nurturing parent, taking care of the new chick just like he did when he was rearing Parvolet with his ex-partner Leshka in 2014. For the young mother Nadezhda, this is the first offspring, but she is a very caring mother, working diligently to look after her chick. 

News from Parvolet — the first chick to hatch at the Centre

Parvolet was the first and only Griffon Vulture that hatched in the Centre, until now. After being carefully cared for by his parents, he was housed in a vulture adaptation aviary at “Sinite kamani” Nature Park. He spent years there, adapting to the harsh mountain conditions, together with other birds of its species, as well as the wild birds freely roaming in the area. On July 2019 this year, the long-awaited moment came — Parvolet was ready to live in the wild. He was released together with two other Griffon Vultures within the Vultures Back To LIFE project. He is now a wild and independent vulture, roaming free in the Central Balkan mountain in the region of Kotel and Sliven. 

Territories currently occupied by Parvolet

We hope that the newly hatched chick will grow to be healthy and strong, and follow the fate of its brother Parvolet in the wild!

Source: Green Balkans

Vulture 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 and Germany, 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 centers 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.

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