📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 10/01/2022
End Date: 09/01/2027
Total Budget: 2,678,434 €
EU Contribution: 1,507,869 €
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is an Annex I species of the EU Birds Directive, and is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ in the European Red List of Birds (2015). It formerly inhabited most of the mountains of south-western Europe, but by 2019 its population had been reduced to only 252 pairs in the EU, 75.8% of them in the Pyrenees. The significant reduction of threats affecting scavenging raptors (mainly poisoning and illegal hunting), has enabled a spectacular recovery of their numbers and distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. The population of bearded vulture is recovering in the Pyrenees, its most important stronghold in Europe. However, instead of expanding throughout its former range (as other species have done), due to its marked philopatric character it has remained in the Pyrenees. Numerous studies have shown that the Pyrenean population has problems typical of ‘island’ populations, such as for example, increased number of breeding trios (30-35% of the total), which lowers productivity, and increased number of non-breeding adults (51% of the population). In Aragón, which has the largest population in Europe (74 pairs), only 27.1% of pairs successfully breed. All this means there is still a high risk of extinction. In order to ensure its long-term conservation it is necessary to extend this population to its former distribution area through reintroduction programmes, which is a priority of both the Strategy for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture in Spain (2000) and the two Species Action Plans approved by the European Commission (Birdlife 2011; VCF 2018). The Spanish Government considers it strategic to reach new stable population nuclei outside the Pyrenees through reintroduction programmes, to favour genetic exchange and the flow of individuals through corridors. The first steps towards this scenario was a reintroduction project in Andalusia (LIFE04 NAT/E/000056), which established a nucleus of five breeding pairs. In 2013, another reintroduction project started, developed by the FCQ in Picos de Europa (LIFE12 NAT/ES/000322), which has managed to establish one pair.
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the LIFE Pro BV project is to reduce the long-term risk of extinction of the main EU population of bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) by recovering its former range in the Iberian Peninsula.
This will be achieved through the following specific activities:
Reintroduction to create a sub-population to extend the vulture’s range into the Sistema Central (Gredos, central Spain), through an ecological corridor that runs from Portugal across the Iberian Peninsula from east to west, where for the last 4 years there has been a regular presence of vagrants from the Andalusian reintroduction project;
KEYWORDS
bird species
social participation
