The second-ever Griffon Vulture chick to hatch at the Green Balkans’ Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Centre turned one month old! 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
The chick’s egg pipped on 7 April 2020, after 53 days of diligent incubation. With the help of its parent, the chick successfully hatched on the next day. During the hatching, the parents were observing the process, and impatiently awaiting the arrival of their chick!
Taking care of the one-month-old 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, the first chick to ever hatch at the centre, with his ex-partner Leshka in 2014. For the young mother Nadezhda, this is the first offspring, but she is a very caring mother, constantly taking care of her chick. Here is the nurturing father feeding his chick for eight minutes straight. Enjoy!
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 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.
