About sixty lammergeier cubs, an endangered species, are born in twenty years.
Catalonia has had a program to protect this bird in danger of extinction in Europe since 2005 Since a breeding program for bearded vultures (Gypaetus barbatus) was launched in Catalonia in 2005, the initiative has seen the birth of up to 57 lice of this endangered species. The last one broke its shell last Monday at the Fauna Center of Vallcalent, in Segrià. According to the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, this is the fifth specimen of this type of vulture born this year in the two Catalan wildlife centers that are part of the project, Vallcalent and Torreferrussa, in Vallès Occidental. The figure reached in only the first two months of 2024 is a record: last year there were only four births of these birds, two in 2022 and one in 2021. In these centers, when the young reach adulthood, some are released to reinforce the existing populations of free-ranging bearded vultures in Europe – 32 have been released in these twenty years – while some twenty animals have been integrated into breeding centers. The fate of the remaining five bearded vultures has not yet been decided. The repopulation of these birds is a slow process because it is first necessary to increase the number of animals and then to create breeding pairs. According to Acció Climàtica, this could mean a nine-year wait.
Recovery since the 1980s
In Catalonia at the beginning of the 20th century the species was present in the Pyrenees and in the Ports of Tortosa. However, it soon suffered a regression in the Pyrenees, until in the early eighties there were only about five pairs of bearded vultures distributed in the regions of Alta Ribagorça, Pallars Jussà and Pallars Sobirà. The main reasons why this species began to disappear are the use of poisons, hunting, electrocution and the plundering of nests. For this reason, the bearded vulture is a protected species and classified as endangered by the catalog of endangered native wildlife. Faced with the regression of the species, almost twenty years ago, a conservation project was launched with the participation of some forty European organizations, coordinated by the Vulture Conservation Foundation. Since then, the presence of this bird began to recover, and in 2023 it was located in 48 territories throughout Catalonia. Currently, the Vallcalent breeding center is the third largest in Europe, after Richard Faust Zentrum in Austria and Guadalentin in Andalusia. Since 2019, twelve new breeding cages have been built at Vallcalent, which have been added to the six existing ones and have increased the center’s breeding capacity.
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