Pioneering French NGO Vautours en Baronnies is working to revive populations of all 4 European vulture species within the southwestern French Alps. Membership of the European Rewilding Community will allow the workforce to share information, enhancing the comeback of those magnificent, ecologically vital birds throughout the continent.
Emmanuel Rondeau
Crucial comeback
Vultures are actually superb. There may be nothing fairly just like the sight of a squadron of those majestic birds, their finger-like major feathers clawing the air as they climb greater and better on the day’s thermals. Because the continent’s most well-known scavengers, Europe’s 4 vulture species (griffon, cinereous, Egyptian and bearded) play a important function sustaining the well being and steadiness of untamed nature, quickly cleansing up and recycling the our bodies of lifeless animals as a part of the so-called “circle of life“.
Regardless of their iconic standing, and the advantages they provide nature and other people, vultures haven’t at all times been so appreciated. By the center of the 20 th century, a variety of things – together with the disappearance of meals, habitat loss, and poisoning – had pushed them to extinction or close to extinction in lots of European nations. Since then, nonetheless, the tide has slowly turned, with wide-ranging conservation efforts enabling the continued return of vultures in lots of areas. Rewilding Europe is enjoying a key function, supporting vulture comeback in lots of its personal landscapes.
Emmanuel Rondeau
Pioneering vulture restoration in France
One other initiative enjoying a pivotal function within the restoration of European vultures is Vautours en Baronnies. Since 1992, the French NGO has been engaged in groundbreaking reintroduction efforts to assist vulture comeback in Baronnies Regional Pure Park – an space of prime vulture habitat within the Dauphiné Alps in southeast France.
These efforts have seen thriving colonies of griffon and cinereous vultures established within the park, resulting in the pure return of the Egyptian vulture – Europe’s smallest vulture species. Ongoing bearded vulture reintroductions are additionally working in the direction of the creation of a brand new breeding inhabitants of the species within the native space. In Could, Rewilding Europe’s European Wildlife Comeback Fund awarded a 60,000-euro grant to Vautours en Baronnies to assist finance the discharge of as much as six bearded vultures within the Baronnies by means of until 2025.
Emmanuel Rondeau
Taking vulture reintroduction efforts to the subsequent stage
Vautours en Baronnies has simply joined Rewilding Europe’s European Rewilding Community as its 94th member, with community membership distributed throughout 29 European nations. With different members concerned within the restoration of vulture populations throughout Europe, the inclusion of the French initiative will strengthen the community’s collective experience and assist the Vautours en Baronnies workforce in their very own rewilding efforts.
“We’re thrilled to be a part of the community,” says Julien Traversier, the bearded vulture programme coordinator at Vautours en Baronnies. “We deliver three a long time of expertise in vulture reintroductions, which we’re desperate to share with all these vulture rewilders who share our objective of restoring the circle of life throughout European landscapes.”
Having reintroduced three vulture species, the Vautours en Baronnies workforce have vastly helpful sensible know-how. This encompasses the well-established “hacking” technique of releasing captive-bred vultures into the wild, which will increase the possibilities that the birds will choose their launch website because the place to breed.
Georgi Kurtev
Enormous financial increase
As we speak, for the primary time in over a century, all 4 European vulture species might be seen hovering effortlessly by means of the skies above the Baronnies Regional Pure Park. The park is only one of a handful of locations in Europe the place this spectacle might be witnessed, drawing vulture lovers and wildlife lovers from throughout France and farther afield.
In 2018, a examine was carried out by the French Ministry of Ecology, in partnership with two pure parks, to evaluate the financial influence of vulture reintroduction in Baronnies Regional Pure Park and the Vercors Regional Pure Park, positioned a brief distance to the north. Counters have been arrange at two villages – one in every park – to measure the variety of individuals coming to see vultures. The findings have been vastly spectacular.
“We discovered that at simply these two websites, greater than 40,000 individuals have been coming yearly to see the birds, injecting an estimated complete of 1 to 1.4 million euros into native economies,” says Gilles Rayé, who coordinated and co-authored the examine for the Ministry of Ecology, and is now president of Rewilding France. “In Rémuzat – a village of solely 300 inhabitants the place Vautours en Baronnies relies – greater than 20,000 individuals have been visiting yearly.
“Twenty years in the past, simply discovering someplace to spend the evening in Rémuzat was an actual problem. As we speak, there’s a variety of bars, eating places, and self-catering cottages. This spectacular nature-based tourism progress, which is constant, is all right down to vulture comeback.”
Emmanuel Rondeau
Feeding stations: a win-win for farmers and vultures
In 1993, in collaboration with native veterinary providers, Vautours en Baronnies started gathering the carcasses of sheep and goats from native farmers inside a 20-kilometre radius of Rémuzat. These have been then offered to vultures by means of feeding stations. Since 2008, the NGO has helped numerous farmers set up such stations on their very own land, in accordance with sanitary rules.
This method of feeding stations is a win-win for each farmers and vultures. It saves farmers money and time, as they don’t need to pay for carcasses to be collected. Since 2018, they’ve additionally been eligible for monetary assist from the Baronnies Regional Pure Park to arrange the stations. It additionally means carcasses are disposed of shortly, minimising the danger of illness.
In return, vultures in and across the park have entry to a daily provide of meals. The community of stations allows the birds to develop their house vary and encourages them to search for carcasses throughout a wider space, which is extra aligned with their pure foraging behaviour. In an excellent world, vultures throughout Europe would feed completely on the carcasses of untamed animals. Nonetheless, a decline in wildlife populations means livestock carcasses are sometimes a important supply of meals. That is the case within the Dauphiné Alps, the place domesticated animals comparable to sheep far outnumber wild herbivores comparable to deer and chamois, though herbivore numbers are regularly rising of their very own accord.
Emmanuel Rondeau
The facility of the community
The European Rewilding Community, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in October 2023, has turn out to be some of the vital instruments for scaling up rewilding in Europe. It brings Europe’s rewilding initiatives nearer collectively, empowering each with the information, expertise, and assist to be extra profitable in their very own endeavours, and driving the burgeoning European rewilding motion forwards.
