Last 26th of March 2008 the Aragon Government and the Spanish Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCQ) announced a new step on the conservation of the endangered population of the bearded vulture of the Spanish Pyrenees. A new assisted breeding technique is being developed in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park which hopes to achieve the release of the first bearded vulture born in captivity and reared in human isolation following a program of behavioural learning by natural impront.

This technique has been used before with success in species with similar ecology such as the Californian Condor and the Andean Condor in Argentina, but never with the bearded vulture, which has been traditionally bred in captivity programs, like those carried out in the Alps or in Andalusia, with the help of unviable adult birds for the behavioural learning process. The management of the wild bearded vulture population by the Aragon Government in collaboration with the FCQ has been aimed to increase its demographic performance by extracting eggs layed in nests that have failed to breed (at least for the last 6 years), breeding them in a controlled environment and releasing them back to the wild population.

This process has been carried out successfully four times in the last years, following the traditional breeding technique with the help of breeding centres in central Europe. In this occasion, after the extraction of the egg in January and its eclosion in late February, the two week old chicken has been taken to a management platform built at 1500 meters in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, where the new technique is being developed.

The artificial nest offers two sides for the chicken. From the back a an FCQ expert manages the puppet that feeds the chicken and makes sure the temperature of the nest is correct, while on the other side a window offers a close view to dozens of wild bearded vultures that fly, feed and interact attracted by the supplementary feeding supplied by the National Park. This is the unique school where the chicken will learn the natural behaviour of the specie that will allow him to survive once he leaves the breeding platform on his first flight.

This will take place around 120 days after the eclosion of the egg, with the last 40 days of the process spent in a cage on the same platform that allows the chicken to exercise and keep on learning from the wild. Before its release the fledging will be marked with colour tags and a satellite transmitting device that will allow its monitoring in the following months.

Translation of the original Spanish news item on Quebrantahuesos.org

For two days, June 18 and 19 , 2007, the FCQ hosted two specialists on breeding in captivity, William Voelker and Juan Manuel Blanco, who came to learn about the conservation activities developed by the FCQ in the Pyrenees of Aragon. They visited the installations of the future Bearded Vulture Breeding Center at Zaragoza., the Ecomuseo Visitor Center at the Castillo of Aínsa, the Biological Station Monte Perdido (Revilla) and the feeding station of Bearded Vultures at Cuello Bail (Sierra de Guara), contributing with valuable information on the care and management of endangered species and breeding centers.

As in previous years the University of Zaragoza, the FCQ and LammerGierFonds LGF, organize the third course Biology of Conservation (practical applications) in Aínsa (Ecomuseo) and Revilla (Biological Station Monte Perdido), from the 9th through the 13th of July, 2007. The course is presided over by Dr Javier Lucientes (professor of Animal Pathology) and Mrs Emma Sanchez Castilla (FCQ). The teaching staff consists of M.Alcantara (Department of Environment), J.Bustamante (SIC), D.Goñi (IPE), J.Lucientes (University of Zaragoza), P.M.Rica (IPE), J.A.Gil (FCQ), G.Báguena (FCQ), J.T.Alcalde (SEO), J.R.Obesos (University of Oviedo) and J.Herrero (University of Alcala). The program is varied and this year wants to be exclusively practical: scientific ringing, trapping small mammals, inventory of populations, demografic tracking, techniques for marking vertebrates, etc.

The project is established in casa Juan Bernad, which dates from the 16th century and has been adapted to modern times and needs. Thus there is solar energy for electricity and hot water, and it contains a livingroom, dining hall, kitchen, library and conference room with audiovisual means. It has capacity for groups up to 20 persons, in small dormitories, each with bathroom. The aim of the biological station is to promote the development of training programs, technical seminars and give accomodation, all in connection with birds and their habitat. It further provides for the stay of researchers and professionals of environmental studies whose research work concentrates on the study of the environment and ecology of the mountain ecosystems of the Pyrenees. At the same time it will be an open air classroom, for environmental education, rural development, extensive grazing programs, or for nature fotografy and painting, all social aims of the FCQ.

Summing up, this is a centre that promotes activities of a technical nature and develops in an altruistic way assignments of environmental studies, training, promotion and management. The FCQ also likes to point out that it is an ideal place for groups for environmental training, as the majority of the activities can be done on foot from the house itself, which makes long transfers unnecessary. Moreover, it is situated in a place that is exceptionally good for observing Bearded Vultures as it is one of the best points in Europe, being in the National Park Ordessa y Monte Perdido and in the middle of the Sobrarbe region, which has a good deal of its territory within the zone “Red Natura 2000″.

The past 16th and 17th of November 2006 the Second Seminar on the recuperation of the Bearded Vulture in the Iberico-cantrabican mountains was held in the BSMP at Revilla (Huesca), with the aim to establish the lines of action for the recuperation of the population, extinguished in these mountains, within the framework of the national Strategy for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture. Professionals and representatives of the autonomous communities Asturia, Aragon, Castilla-Leon, were present at this meeting, as well as the directors of the national parks Ordesa y Monte Perdido and Picos de Europa, the mayor of Benia de Onis and a good deal of the working team of the FCQ in the Picos de Europa and the Pyrenees. The proceedings could count on the financial support of the Fundación Biodiversidad.

With the aim to exchange mutual knowledge between the Fundación para la Conservación del Quebrantahuesos and the Associacion Naturaliste de Midi-Pyrenées, the first of the Cross-border Meetings took place at Revilla in the LGF/FCQ’s Biological Station Monte Perdido, recently in function for the first time. The meeting consisted of various presentations of the areas of work developed by both entities, round tables on cross-border cooperation and instructive walking tours along the Gargantas de Escuaín and on the Peña Montañesa. With the same intention a second meeting will be held in Bagneres de Bigorre (France) coinciding with the second meeting of the Naturalistes de Midi-Pyrenées next 17th and 18th of November. Both meetings were partially subsidized by the Department of Economic Affairs, Finance and Labour of the Aragon Government.

Past 9th of September, coinciding with the main festive day of Revilla (municipality of Tell-Sin/Huesca), the FCQ and the Dutch foundation LGF signed the contract of cooperation which settles the joint management of the several parts of the house. The aim of the restoration of this house of pyrenean architecture, situated next to the national park Ordesa y Monte Perdido, will be to facilitate lodging for all those training activities whose development both foundations have in mind, related to subjects of ornithology, ecology and conservacion of alpine habitats, environmental education and legislation, projects of rural development, as well as facilitate the lodging of researchers and students. The president of the LGF, Elisabeth Portheine, emphasised by putting her signature, her interest in getting people in the European Union to know the Spanish project for the recuperacion of the Bearded Vulture. Its restoration was done with a maximum of observance of the traditional architecture as it is in these parts of the Pyrenees, incorporating alternative methods of energy and new technology to facilitate its use and sustainability. Actually, the restoration work is in its final stage and in October the two first training groups are expected, with which its utility will be tested and this new and interesting project will start.