{"id":12306,"date":"2019-09-11T11:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T08:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4vultures.org\/?p=12306"},"modified":"2021-05-13T12:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T09:22:21","slug":"new-study-reveals-amazing-flexibility-of-migration-among-egyptian-vultures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4vultures.org\/pt\/blog\/new-study-reveals-amazing-flexibility-of-migration-among-egyptian-vultures\/","title":{"rendered":"New study reveals amazing flexibility of migration among Egyptian Vultures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Egyptian Vultures soar and glide from Europe to Africa and back every year (c) Bruno Berthemy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a blog article written by Dr Steffen Oppel, RSPB<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens if a goat dies in the hills of Albania, or Lebanon, or the deserts of Ethiopia? Most likely, you won\u2019t care one bit. But the carcass festers under the sun for a day or two, and then nature\u2019s clean-up crew arrives: vultures. And for one species a single bird could actually clean up carcasses in all of these locations within a few weeks: Egyptian Vultures are the only long-distance migrants among Eurasian vultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we save Egyptian Vultures?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egyptian Vultures are not only the marathon fliers, but they are also the most threatened of any of the European vultures, and there are many regional conservation projects to save them. But to save migratory species, you first need to understand where the birds migrate to. For example, Egyptian vultures have\u00a0declined dramatically on the Balkan peninsula<\/a>\u00a0and in Italy \u2013 but do the birds breeding in those areas migrate to the same wintering areas? Will the bird that eats dead goats in Albania in July look for food in Ethiopia in December, or rather in South Sudan, Chad or Niger?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Egyptian Vulture equipped with a GPS tracking device (c) Pavel Stepanek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the past ten years, researchers and conservationists have equipped Egyptian Vultures with tracking devices <\/strong>to document their migration<\/a>. Now, in a new collaboration published this week in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, scientists from across Europe and the Middle East have combined their data to compare Egyptian Vulture migrations: who has the longest migration, the most convoluted route, and whether the birds that breed together in one country also winter together in Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The different migration journeys of Egyptian Vultures<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The birds breeding in Spain and France had the shortest migration. They crossed the Straight of Gibraltar and then flew south to winter in Senegal, Mauritania or Mali – a journey of roughly 3000 km generally completed within 2-3 weeks. The birds breeding on the Balkan peninsula travelled roughly 2000 km more during every migratory journey, because they first flew around the Mediterranean Sea, and then around the Red Sea – detours that took on average 1-3 weeks longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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