Griffon Vultures in Cyprus - Monitoring of Natural Breeding Successes

Junger Gänsegeier am Nestplatz, aufgenommen 2 Tage vor seinem Erstflug, August 2010

Monitoring of the successful breeding and rearing of the offspring of the griffon vultures in Cyprus.

Extract from Wikipedia: Poison baits are still the greatest threat to residual stocks in south and south-eastern Europe. In Cyprus, for example, 80% of stocks died from pesticide poisoning, 36 of them in 1996 alone. The following year, the number of breeding pairs halved from 16 to 8 and has remained virtually unchanged since then.

In 2015, the severely decimated population of griffon vultures in Cyprus was already severely decimated when the program for the settlement of young griffon vultures imported from Crete was launched. Now, 5 years later, there are also persistent breeding successes in the brood-pairs, which have newly formed in Cyprus.

The nests are built in rock walls on ribbons under overhangs or in forward-open niches and caves. They consist of sticks and branches and are laid out with green branches or grass. The start of laying falls quite uniformly throughout the distribution area in the period from the end of December to the end of March.

The nest consists only of an egg, which is mostly pure white or rarely has small reddish-brown spots. The eggs have an average size of 92.0 x 70.1 mm. Both partners breed, the breeding season lasts 47 to 57 days. The boy is also alternately fed by both partners, which is brought to the nest in the goat and strangled there. The young bird leaves the nest on average after about 135 days, in southern Europe about mid-July to mid-August. He is cared for by the parent birds for a few more weeks and then migrates. The exodus is undirected.

EU Project Life with vultures - https://lifewithvultures.eu/