Khan, the first Bearded Vulture hatched in Bulgaria for decades has become a Frenchman!

Yesterday, at an age of three months, Khan - our first born Bearded Vulture hatched in Bulgaria for decades, left his home, the Wildlife Rescue Centre of Green Balkans and headed to France. He will become a permanent resident of  Parc Zoologique d’Amnéville.

As you probably already know, this year two Bearded Vulture chicks hatched in the Wildlife Rescue Centre, by a pair, we have been keeping since 2008. They are the only representatives of a species gone extinct in Bulgaria and their chicks are the first ones to have hatched in the country for decades.

It was not possible to release the young vultures as they would be the only Bearded Vultures on the Balkans, not to mention they are brothers. Since this is the first offspring of the pair, their bloodline is important for the preservation of the reintroduced population of the species in Europe so both of them were re-directed for captive breeding. Our first-born son, Khan, was forwarded to France, as a part of the Endangered Species Programme of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) coordinated by our colleagues from the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF). A six-month old female bred in the specialized centre of Guadalentin, Spain, is already expecting him there to become his future wife.

We have to say that Khan was quite calm and friendly at the meeting with media we organized hours before his departure. He also patiently passed the metal detectors for humans at the Sofia Airport, in the gentle embrace of Alexandre, his new French keeper, who accompanied him on his first flight. He also spent hours in the air, placed in a transport box on the seat of a regular passenger flight of Air France to Paris and made the journey for the rest of the passengers quite exciting. And despite being held for almost an hour at the airport in Paris due to a fortunately false bomb alert, Khan and Alex arrived to the zoo in good spirits.

We wish Khan a bright future and we hope one day to be able to release his own sons here, in Bulgaria!

For more information:
Hristina Klisurova - PR
Wildlife Rescue Centre - Green Balkans
phone: + 359 886570053 e-mail: hhristova@greenbalkans.org