The ‘White Father’ returns

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The first Egyptian vulture for this year was seen near Madjarovo. In the next few days, colleagues working in Greece and in northern Bulgaria also observed returning birds. They come back to the Balkans to breed after spending the cold winter months in warmer tropical and subtropical regions. Like other spring migrants such as the white stork or the swallow the Egyptian vulture is regarded as a symbol of the awakening of nature and the new beginning of life. The Eastern Rhodope Mountains are the area with the highest number of surviving pairs and there it is known as ‘akbuba’, ‘the white father’. Local people revere it as a sacred bird, which bears wisdom and peace to the regions where it nests.
Unfortunately there are many problems for the survival of the species; in many cases they are caused by bad planning or malevolent human activity.
The Egyptian vulture has always been beneficial to humans – in the past it was in high numbers and provided crucial ‘caretaker’s’ service in the wild, thus preventing outbreaks of diseases and epidemies; at present it’s on the verge of extinction, but it still serves as an indicator species for a clean environment, and as a touristic attraction which can benefit enormously regions with well preserved nature. Recently a new programme for financial support for animal and land farmers, directly connected with the vulture, was launched: Measure 214 ‘Agro-ecological payments’ of the Rural Development Programme.
BSPB administers a five-year-long project for the conservation of the Egyptian vulture. The Return of the Neophron brings together experts from Bulgaria, Greece, and Great Britain in their united effort to save one of the most endangered birds on the planet. The project is realized with the financial support of the LIFE+ Programme of the EU and the A. G. Leventis Foundation.