The fact that the four Bearded Vultures who died this year -shot down, poisoned and two through natural causes- were females will set back the mating of the five specimens still alive -all males- for more than five years. The BeardedVulture, threatened by extinction in Spain, of which little more than two hundred specimens survive in the Pyrenees, does not reach sexual maturity until six years of age.; therefore the mating, if any, of the five males that have survived in the Natural Park of Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas, will not take place before 2015. Moreover the first forming of pairs will take place only if again new females be released next spring, these survive during the six years they need to gain sexual maturity and moreover, their reproduction be successful in order to get the species settled again in Andalusia where it became extinct in 1986. The possibility to release adult females is no option in this program of reintroduction given the scarcity of adult specimens that survive in Spain. The first chicks released in 2006 in the Natural Park of Cazorla, Segura y las Villas -the largest protected area in the Iberian Peninsula, with over 200.000 hectares- were three males: “Tono”, “Libertad” and “Faust”, brought over from various European centers for breeding in captivity. They were released from a cave in the valley las Espumaredas near the village of Pontones where they were fed until they learned to fly. This controlled release makes the chicks asociate the place of release with the place where they were born and thus they consider it the zone where they should form pairs and make nests. These three Bearded Vultures have had a normal development these two years and have made flights of nearly a thousand kilometers even to the Pyrenees. In the spring of 2007 two more chicks were released: “Pontones”, a male , and “Segura”, a female, who appeared to have died from being shot past April in the neighbouring mountainrange of Castril (Granada). Of the four chicks released in spring 2008: “Cazorla”, “Acebeas”, “Lézar” and “Castril”, only the last, a male, survived, as the other three, females, died in the course of 2008. Acebeas appeared to have died of natural causes near its place of release in August ; Cazorla died at the end of October after having swallowed poison in Castril (Granada) and the remains of Lézar were found near the site of release past 2nd of December; its autopsy revealed that it had died of peritonitis. The program of reintroduction of the Bearded Vulture in Andalusia is one of the most ambitious in Spain -together with those of the Lynx, of the Iberian Imperial Eagle, of the Bear or the Wolf- started in 1995 with funds amounting to more than six million euros of which 1,67 million was contributed through a program LIFE; with part of it the costs have been paid of the first center of breeding in captivity of the species in Spain, situated in the valley of Guadalentín in the Natural Park of Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas. Only the population of Bearded Vulture in the Pyrenees is considered a stable population, consisting of some more than two hundred specimens and apart from in Andalusia there are also attempts for its reintroduction in the Picos de Europa. This bird has -together with the Black Vulture- the largest wingspan of birds that fly in Spain as it has almost three meters from one wingpoint to the other; it owes its name (in Spanish: “breaker of bones”) to the fact that it feeds on marrow that it extracts from bones, the largest of which it breaks by dropping them from great height.

Source: Terra actualidad EFE.

Monday, 12th of January, 2009

The Principality of Asturia extends its support of the Bearded Vulture project to 2013.

The FCQ will seek European financing to develop the second phase of its recuperation in the Picos de Europa.

The Principality again renews its commitment to the project of the Bearded Vulture recuperation in the Picos de Europa. It will be for five more years, i.e. the promise of protection extends to 2013. The Director General of Biodiversity and Landscape, José Félix García Gaona, gace his promise the past week to the president of the foundation for the protection of this bird, Gerardo Báguena, at a meeting held in Oviedo. Both Cantabria and Castilla y León had passed on their intention to prolong their support for another five years and only the word of the Principality was missing for an agreement, which was moreover necessary to apply for european financing. The FCQ wishes to present its candidacy for the subsidies of the Project Life before the 30^th of November in order to embark on the second phase of the reintroduction of the bird and moreover to be able to rely on the resources it already had at the start of it. The new project will carry the name: ‘Conservation of the Bearded Vulture in the mountains of the Network Natura 2000 of the north of Spain’. The idea of the second phase is that it is submitted to ‘parallel application’ in the Picos de Europa and in the Pyrenees, but also in the corridor that unites them. Therefor, as Báguena explains, in the first instance it is a matter of actions to be taken to improve the productivity in the Pyrenees. “This consists of acting on the ‘worst nests’ in order to guarantee a larger number of individuals in the Pyrenees, which then will permit the transfer of the first chicks to the Picos.The nests considered to be ‘worst nests’ are those that render less individuals; in concreto, Báguena explains, those that have rendered less than three chicks in the last eleven years. The actions in the Pyrenees have already started. It began two weeks ago with a supplementary feeding plan. This will be supplemented by initiatives that mean to reduce the mortality rate of the birds in Aragón and to create feeding sites in the corridor that unites the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa, where the installation of a permanent station of radio-telemetry is planned to check the movements of the Bearded Vultures. At this moment, as the president of the FCQ explains, the first copulations are taking place, the birds are selecting the caves and this is a critical period; the physical state of the females has to be as healthy as possible to ensure the survival of the chicks that are to fly in the Picos.

Delays.

Báguena explains that the construction of the breeding center of Aragón where the birds that are to be released in the Picos next year, are expected to be born, suffers more delays than foreseen due to the commitments which the building companies made to the Expo Zaragoza. The president of the foundation travelled to Aragón to accelerate the construction. He fears that if it does not speed up “we shall not be in time for the reproduction period”, which will cause another postponement of the date of reintroduction of the Bearded Vulture in the National Park which is shared by Asturia, Cantabria and Castilla y León. The first idea was to release the first birds in 2007, but the adverse weather conditions in the Pyrenees, where the eggs are to be taken, made it impossible. The new term was settled for May next year, in the Duje valley. The president of the foundation explains that the second phase of the reintroduction of the Bearded Vulture also causes the autonomous regions to take care of problems such as the illegal use of poison or the power lines, which are supposed to be the main causes of death of thousands of animals. The Bearded Vulture disappeared from the Picos half way through the last century. The principle causes were poison in bait and death by shooting. At that time it was a hunting trophy of great value. Half a century later in 2002, the foundation, which has been working in the Pyrenees for almost 15 years, started on the project for the recuperation of the species in the Cantabrian Mountain Range.

Source: El Comercio Digital. Wednesday 21 November 2007.

Zaragoza, 12 August 2009. The Spanish Committee of the IUCN and the FCQ sign the agreement of cooperation between both entities which is part of the Project Countdown 2010 and will run until June next year. This project, coordinated by the Spanish Committee of the IUCN, thanks to the collaboration of Obra Social Caja Madrid, is to act on five points within the Spanish geography with activities contributing to the preservation of biodiversity in our country. Countdown 2010, is a network of active members working on global scale to stem the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Within this network, each member agrees to undertake actions to address the various causes of the continuing loss of species. Responding to the challenge, the Spanish Committee of the IUCN supported by Obra Social Caja Madrid in 2008 launched a first project now taken up in this year 2009, with five activities in the field in different parts of Spain. The FCQ in particular will launch the project “maintenance and monitoring of a supplementary feeding point for the Bearded vulture” supporting the ground for this species included in the National Catalog of Endangered Species (CNEA), which corresponds to one of the main priorities aimed at by Countdown 2010: preservation of Iberian diversity. The Spanish Committee of the IUCN, an organisation that coordinates these activities and whose primary objective is the preservation of natural heritage and biodiversity, acting as a platform for meeting and debate between government and nongovernmental

organisations responsible for or involved in nature conservation in Spain, will use the potential of five of its members to carry out and thereby contribute to the 2010 target. Such entities will be the Foundation CRAM and Mediterrania-CIE of Catalonia, the Foundation Nature and Man of Cantabria, the FCQ of Aragon and Aula del Mar of Malaga. Obra Social Caja Madrid has a strong commitment to nature and environment in response to the degradation of our natural environment and its biodiversity and to increasing social awareness towards the problems it causes. For years, Obra Social Caja Madrid has been supporting projects that help reduce the loss of biodiversity through actions aimed at protecting species and ecosystems as well as the restoration of areas degraded by human action. The action which the FCQ will develop in the Aragonese Pyrenees within the initiative of the “Maintenance and monitoring of the Bearded vulture” is to take three measures to increase both the survival of pre-adult an adult Bearded vultures, and to improve the productivity of this threatened species listed as “Endangered”. One of the activities will be the supply of food with surplus remains of human consumption at the supplementary feeding point and monitoring the Bearded vulture with twice-weekly visits to check its use by necrophagous raptors and Bearde vultures in particular. Special monitoring is done of the Bearded vultures bearing identifying wing marks and rings, as the information is collected of the Bearded vultures and other marked raptors in a database updated and searchabel on www.quebrantahuesos.org. Simultaneously maintenance will take place of the feeding point to effectively prevent the entry of terrestrial predators such as foxes and wild boar, which consume the food brought there. Finally in the month of May an special effort will be made of cleaning the feeding point from the growth of grass and bushes for which volunteer participation is planned with a participatory act on 22 May 2010, World Biodiversity Day.

Thursday August 13, 2009

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.

May we add to this curious piece of news on the movements of griffon vultures in Belgium: to say that the observed birds are from the Spanish Pyrenees is at least a wild guess, for as far as we know from this piece of news they were not marked. Be they from whatever part they are (reintroduction project of the Massif Central of France or Spain, with a population of about 22.500 pairs) it is evident that it is an unusual event and that it icould be possible that it is related to the change in the conditions and the provision of food sources since the application of different systems of disposal of dead animals in the European Union.

Europe press Brussels

About 15 birds of this species have been spotted near de Knesselare in Flanders, but it was possible to see them also in four other provinces of Belgium. According to the tv channel the arrival of the carrion birds is due to new legal provisions that prohibit leaving dead animals in the mountains.

Searching for food

To Dominique Verbelen, member of Natuurpunt the Flemish association for the preservation of nature, it is clear that the animals are in search of food. “Vultures in the wild are saprophagous and feed on carrion, but they will not find dead cows or sheep in Belgium” maintains the ecologist. According to Verbelen it is hunger that has driven them to abandon their natural habitat and he calls to mind that before the appearance of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE), generally known as mad cow disease, the Spanish cattlefarmers abandoned the remains of dead animals in the field to be eaten by vultures.

Nothing to do with EU rules

Sources of the EU Executive maintain, however, that the occurrence of the birds in Belgium has nothing to do with EU rules. They call to mind, moreover, that five member states, among them Spain, benefit by a derogation from the legislation permitting them to dispose of dead animals in the field to feed the vultures under certain conditions and always and only when it is supposed not to be a risk to public health.

This new Decree 664/2007 replaces 1098/2002 and incorporates a new European Union Decision, so that, if dumping on feeding stations is desirable, it is no longer necessary that all carrion be tested for brain diseases.

This decision lays down less restrictive conditions, especially concerning sheep and goats. Whole dead animals of these species younger than 18 months, and of bovine species up to 24 months, may be dumped; also older animals, though containing material specified as a risk, provided that on at least 4% of the dead animals in the farm of origin a quick test has been performed for the diagnosis of transmittable encephalitis spongiformis, with negative result.

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.