{"id":5769,"date":"2018-09-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4vultures.org\/blog\/captive-bred-egyptian-vultures-on-the-move\/"},"modified":"2018-09-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T00:00:00","slug":"captive-bred-egyptian-vultures-on-the-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4vultures.org\/pt\/blog\/captive-bred-egyptian-vultures-on-the-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Captive-bred Egyptian vultures released in Bulgaria now on the move!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Like everywhere, the Egyptian vultures in the eastern part of the species\u00b4 European range have begun their annual migration, including the young birds released as part of the experimental release programme within the Egyptian Vulture New LIFE vulture conservation project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Egyptian vultures on the move<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spending their summer breeding in Europe and parts of asia, Egyptian vultures undertake each year long migrations to warmer overwintering grounds. This migration travel is often very perilous, and can lead to significant mortality \u2013 in a study done with wild tagged young egyptian vultures in Bulgaria and Greece, around 70% died during the first migration, often drowning while trying to cross the Mediterranean through less conventional routes.<\/p>\n

This was also the case for some of the captive-bred individuals released two years ago. In this case the migration may be even more risky, as they often undertake their long migration without the presence of other members of their species, specially adult birds, that tend to migrate early \u2013 captive-bred individuals tend to fledge very late in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Releasing Egyptian vultures into the wild<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the Egyptian Vulture New LIFE project, we at the Vulture Conservation Foundation are supporting and contributing to a comprehensive experiment that aims to test different techniques of releasing captive-bred Egyptian vultures in a standardised way and test for survival of the young. These techniques have involved the traditional hacking method, fostering chicks in wild nests and delayed release. This year four that hatched last eyar have been released through the delayed release method in Spring \u2013 named Polya, Boyana, Panteley and Akaga, one young was rleased rhiough fosteting ina\u00a0 wild nest \u2013 named Blanca, while two others were released through the hacking method (Anna and Vanya)<\/p>\n

Following the released birds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the end of August some of these birds have started their journey south and the team at Egyptian Vulture New LIFE have been following their progress closely. Since the start of the migration a team from the LIFE project has traveled to the migratory bottleneck of Sarimazi in Turkey to observe and count the Egyptian vultures as they travel south too.<\/p>\n

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Akaga\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The first of the released birds to start their journey was Akaga, in the end of August.<\/p>\n

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Akaga was one of the birds released via the delayed release technique and traveled from the release site in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains first making her way to Turkey, near Istanbul. She then moved south to the Dardanelles, where she crossed into Asia, and continued her journey to southern Turkey. In the Adrasan Peninsula, rather than crossing to nearby Cyprus \u2013 a route that often leads to drownings, Akaga flew around the heavily built-up coast across Antalya Bay and roosted near the town of Ceyhan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Incredibly, after a 1,200km journey the Egyptian Vulture New LIFE team caught up with Akaga as her roosting site was near the town where the Sarimazi observation team were staying. Since the sighting in Ceyhan Akaga traveled 700 km south in less than three days at an amazing 70 km\/h, at an altitude of 2000m, and her last recorded location was in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n