Guest blog by Dr Steffen Oppel, Senior Conservation Scientist, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science
The Egyptian vulture is the smallest and most threatened of the four European vulture species, and the population in the Balkans has declined dramatically over the past decades (see paper published in the journal Bird Conservation International, titled Population decline and range contraction of the Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus in the Balkan Peninsula).
Photo of Egyptian vultures in Madzharovo © RSPB Ewan Weston
Implementing conservation actions to reverse the decline of the Egyptian vulture
Since 2010 a large EU-funded conservation project called the “Return of the Neophron” in Bulgaria and Greece has been trying to reverse the fortunes for the species through an ambitious combination of detailed research and the implementation of conservation actions such as nest guarding, and vulture supplementary feeding.
One of the speculated causes for population declines was a shortage of livestock carcasses, which is an important food source for vultures. Hence, providing additional food at central ‘restaurants’ and also near the nests of individual pairs appeared to be a good option to increase the number of chicks a pair could raise. Guarding the nests against accidental disturbance and egg robbers was also anticipated to help the species.
Food scarcity is not the main problem for Egyptian vultures
After 5 years of hard work and detailed study, some results (published in the journal Bird Conservation International titled Diet is not related to productivity but to territory occupancy in a declining population of Egyptian Vultures Neophron percnopterus) showed that food scarcity does not seem to be the main problem for Egyptian vultures. We found that they have a very broad diet with remains of 137 species found in Egyptian vulture nests, including reptiles, cats, dogs, fish, birds and some invertebrates.
Supplementary feeding is not enough to keep vultures from eating poisoned carcasses
In a further study we found that it is exactly that versatility that may prove fatal: providing Egyptian vultures with some supplementary food may not be enough to keep them from also eating a poisoned carcass that somebody placed in their territory. Although the nest guardians rescued 10 chicks that had fallen from the nests, they also found more than 20 dead adults – birds that had been poisoned by toxic baits that local farmers and hunters use to illegally kill livestock predators or other animals.
Photo of poisoned Egyptian vulture named Lazaros in April 2013 ©HOS Lavrentis Sidiropoulos. Follow Lazaros's journey from being fitted with a satellite transmitter. While intensive conservation management helps to engage local people and inform them about the problems the species faces, supplementary feeding and nest guarding cannot prevent vultures from being poisoned. The poisoning is illegal, but there is little capacity among local authorities to enforce the law and provide suitable alternatives for perpetrators.
A new study published in the journal Biological Conservation titled Assessing the effectiveness of intensive conservation actions: Does guarding and feeding increase productivity and survival of Egyptian Vultures in the Balkans? describes he management in detail, and calls on national governments to enforce existing laws and encourage behavioural change. The project also provides a temporary solution to the poison crisis: trained dogs are now used in Greece to detect and remove poison baits from the landscape.