Consolidating and expanding the Cinereous Vulture Population in Portugal

The LIFE Program of the European Union is funding the “LIFE Aegypius return” project, which was approved this year. Its primary goal is to expand and consolidate the European Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus) population in Portugal and western Spain with the goal of doubling the breeding population of this species in the region within the next few years. The Black Vulture’s threat category should be raised from “Critically Endangered” to at least “Endangered” in order to boost its reproductive success. The Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF), which also serves as the project’s national coordinator, has a number of other partners in addition to Palombar.

Actions of the central strands of Sentinelas, which began in 2019, are at stake. These strands include assessing the vulnerability of wild fauna species to the illegal use of poisons, examining social perceptions and tolerance levels of various interest groups towards wild fauna species, and monitoring, through GPS devices, sentinel species of birds and mammals that are most affected by various forms of illegal persecution as well as by other types of threats of anthropogenic origin.