Bearded vultures in Switzerland: population developing well
The Swiss Alps offer ideal living conditions for bearded vultures: this year, five new bearded vulture pairs raised a chick.
No fewer than five new bearded vulture pairs were responsible for wild broods in Switzerland this year. The Pro Bartgeier Foundation now wants to take advantage of the favourable situation in Switzerland and introduce new blood into the population. The foundation plans to release young birds of particular genetic value from the breeding programme in the canton of Obwalden in early summer 2020.
With this, the Pro Bartgeier Foundation aims to strengthen the still-limited genetic diversity within the Alpine population. Released bearded vultures would have particularly good chances of survival in Switzerland and of beginning their first brood at the age of five to six years, the foundation adds. In the past, bearded vultures have repeatedly been released in Obwalden.
Populations on the rise
Living conditions in Switzerland are so favourable for bearded vultures because the high numbers of wild ungulates provide sufficient food, because poaching is rare, and because there is little evidence of poison baiting, the foundation writes. As a result, 21 of the 51 breeding pairs across the Alps are raising their young in Switzerland.
Overall, the bearded vulture population in the Alps continues to grow, the foundation writes. This year, eleven young birds fledged from wild broods in Switzerland. Across the entire Alpine arc, the figure was 38. Experts estimate that today, 33 years after the start of the reintroduction project, nearly 300 bearded vultures live in the Alps.227 were released into the wild, and a further 271 hatched from wild broods. A species conservation success story.
