At the end of last week, experts, veterinarians, and volunteers from the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), Green Balkans, RIEW Haskovo, and GREFA participated in the marking and transmitter fitting of a total of eight black vultures in the adaptation aviary near Madzharovo.
Nearly twenty people took part in the event. The new group will join the vultures already released in previous years in the spring of 2025, with the goal of forming a colony in Bulgaria.
Each bird was examined, marked with a standard metal and PVC ring, and equipped with a GPS/GSM transmitter. The tracking technologies and markings will allow experts to monitor the vultures in real-time and will help track their adaptation to their new home in the Eastern Rhodopes in Bulgaria. Additionally, all birds were inspected and dewormed by a veterinary team from Green Balkans Stara Zagora.
It is worth recalling that the black vultures released over the last three years have been equipped with transmitters. The GPS transmitters provide invaluable information, helping teams respond quickly to incidents. A notable example is the successful rescue of vulture B14 in Greece in 2023, which returned to Bulgaria at the end of January and will be re-released into the wild in the Eastern Rhodopes. Unfortunately, not all cases have happy endings – the incident involving the vulture Andalusia revealed evidence of poaching, serving as an urgent call for stricter protection of the species.
Experts hope that the black vulture will reestablish itself as a key species in the region in the near future and, one day, inhabit all of Europe once again. Creating a colony in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria, will support the survival of the species in the Balkans. It is expected to facilitate bird exchanges with the last surviving natural colony of about 30 pairs located in the Greek part of the Rhodopes, as well as with reintroduced black vultures in the Balkan Mountains.
The reintroduction activities are part of the LIFE project, ” Restoration of the Cinereous vulture population and trophic chain in the Bulgarian-Greek cross-border region “,” implemented on the Bulgarian side by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds in collaboration with Rewilding Rhodopes Foundation. The project (No. 101148254 — LIFE23-NAT-BG-LIFE Rhodope Vulture) is co-financed by the European Union’s LIFE program and Rewilding Europe.