Vultures - Vulture Conservation Foundation (2024)

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Vultures feed on carrion, the remains of dead animals, and act as the ‘rubbish collectors’ of the natural world offering a valuable socioeconomic service to local communities. Feeding on animal remains, vultures likely help eliminating potentially harmful bacteria from the environment, potentially limiting the spread of diseases such as anthrax and rabies.

Vulture conservation work not only protects these ecologically important birds but as umbrella species, these efforts also benefit their habitat and other wildlife such as other endangered raptors like Imperial and Golden Eagles as well as large herbivores such as deer, ibex and European Bison.

Persecution, poisoning, habitat loss and changes in farming practices leading to decreasing food availability saw Europe’s four species of vultures being driven close to extinction across much of the continent over the 19th and 20th Centuries. Today, due to dedicated conservation actions, the Bearded, Cinereous and Griffon Vulture populations are recovering.

However, Europe’s vulture species still face those historical challenges in some European countries and a range of emerging threats from; poisoning after eating the remains of game animals laced with traces of lead ammunition or livestock treated with veterinary products, and collisions with electricity infrastructure including wind farms and power-lines.

The once common sight of a Bearded Vulture soaring above the Alps mountain range was consigned to the past in 1913 when the last individual was shot at Aosta Valley. However, a unique partnership spanning five countries involving zoos, government agencies and non-governmental organisations led by passionate conservationists began to reintroduce the species to the mountain chain. The captive-breeding programme commenced in 1978, with the first releases taking place in 1986 in Austria. After breeding and releasing hundreds of birds, today the species is firmly re-established across the Alpine arc with 300 individuals, making the reintroduction project one of the world’s most successful wildlife comeback stories. — vulture conservation can work!

Using our experience in this groundbreaking conservation initiative we have since been collaborating across Europe with governments, businesses, local communities and other non-governmental organizations to protect and conserve the Bearded Vultures as well as the other European vulture species — Cinereous, Egyptian and Griffon Vultures.

• Multi-species Action Plan to Conserve African Eurasian Vultures - Summary
• Multi-species Action Plan to Conserve African Eurasian Vultures