Sofia Zoo sent a young Egyptian Vulture to the Wildlife Rescue Centre in Stara Zagora

The young vulture is a two-year old male, hatched in the zoo. He used to live with his sister, not too far from his parents. Experience shows that Egyptian Vultures are very sensitive to the presence of neighbors from the same species, even if these were their own children. In addition to that, the vultures are too young to breed and there will be several years until they get interested in the opposite sex. This is why our colleagues from the Sofia Zoo preferred to send the young male to the Wildlife Rescue Centre at Green Balkans – Stara Zagora, where he would be able to choose from three females. There are four birds from the globally endangered species currently kept at the Rescue Centre, but all of them are unfortunately non-releasable. The only male has no foot, so we are concerned if he would be able to eventually become a father.

From today, the Stara Zagora ladies will have an extra candidate for their hearts. All the five vultures will soon be transferred into a special dating aviary, constructed with the financial support of the Praha Zoo. The faith of the species facing extinction touched the authorities of the City of Prague and after the visit of Mr. Antonin Vaidl from the Czech Republic, the City Council decided to use some of the funds, collected from the visitors of the Praha Zoo for the construction of a special vulture aviary in the Rescue Centre in Bulgaria.

Egyptian Vulture is a globally endangered species and its population in Bulgaria is unfortunately rapidly decreasing. One of the ways to turn this trend is to try and breed non-releasable birds and release their offspring into the wild.

This is an extraordinary example of international cooperation and shows the significant role zoos could play in supporting threatened species into the wild.

We are very grateful to all institutions and colleagues, especially to Mr. Vaidl, Dr. Ivanov and Mrs. Zareva, for their trust in us with this great responsibility. We will do our best to secure peace and excellent conditions for our vultures, hoping that with time, we will be able to help them return to nature.

For more information, please contact:
Elena Kmetova
Project manager of the Vultures Return in Bulgaria
Phone: + 359 885 219 557; ekmetova@greenbalkans.org