This maintains the upward growth trend in the birds’ population, with two more young, 71 vultures leaving their nests in this part of Bulgaria in summer last year.

Following Eastern Rhodopes’ continuous growth as a tourist destination, one of the main objectives for Rewilding Rhodopes has been to facilitate a transition to a more values-based tourism industry. The last two years, provided an opportunity to rethink the tourism economy we want to have in the region, by focusing on factors such as the kind of visitors we want to attract and the kind of experiences we want in the tourism industry, and respectively the kind of outcomes we want for locals and the landscape.
Important step in setting the region on this sustainable path is the new edition of Crossbill Guides for the Eastern Rhodopes.

Bulgaria’s Rewilding Rhodopes team were overjoyed to record the births of four bison calves in May and June this year – the highest number of calves to have been born in a single season since bison were reintroduced to Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains in 2019.

Cinereous vultures – Europe’s largest and heaviest raptor – have been brought back to Southern Bulgaria, with 17 birds from Spain having been transported all the way to the rewilding landscape of the Rhodope Mountains.

Тhis spring 76 griffon vulture chicks have so far hatched in the Rhodope Mountains rewilding area in Bulgaria. Vulture experts from the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), local rewilding partner, visited all the nesting sites in the eastern part of the Rhodopes Mountains in mid-May to conduct the count.

Our work to protect and increase the numbers of Cinereous and Griffon vultures in the Rhodope Mountains has been nominated for the European LIFE Award.

Тhe three female bison arrive in the Rhodope Mountains after their journey from Bieszczady Mountains in Poland. They will soon join the area’s free-roaming bison herd, boosting its health and viability and positively impacting local wild nature.

Following a series of releases this winter a total of 81 fallow deer were transported and released in the Rodope Mountains in Bulgaria this winter. In collaboration with local partners, the Rewilding Rhodopes team has been working for many years to re-establish viable populations of both red and fallow deer in the Rhodope Mountains rewilding area, with more than 500 fallow and 50 red deer reintroduced at different sites, creating several growing subpopulations of these two species.

42 fallow deer were released on southern shore of the Kardzhali reservoir in November and are now monitored by the Rewilding Rodopes team.

Every place has different priorities, history, or culture and challenges like sustainability need to be addressed according to the local context. Achieving green transition needs to be done in a holistic way taking into consideration jobs, health, wellbeing, mobility, and social rights. Nature must be our biggest ally in this transition, and rewilding can provide effective solutions both in terms of rural and urban contexts.