Egyptian vulture numbers are on the rise for the first time in 40 years in Bulgaria, giving conservationists hope for the species across the Balkans and other parts of Europe.
Conservationists in Bulgaria are celebrating a trend of population growth for Egyptian vultures for the first time in 40 years.
In 2024, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) and BirdLife Bulgaria team recorded 35 occupied Egyptian vulture territories in Bulgaria, an increase of almost 20% compared to last year.
Small increases have been recorded previously, considered as fluctuations, but this is the first time a consistent trend of population growth has been recorded for four decades, giving conservationists hope for the future of the endangered species across the Balkans.
The Egyptian vulture is the smallest vulture species in Europe and the most threatened. A dramatic decline over the past 40 years in the Balkans depleted the population from 600 pairs in the 1980s to less than 60 pairs in 2019. The core of the fragile population lives in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria, where around 50% of the Balkan population lives.
“Human-wildlife conflict is the root of this decline, specifically the illegal use of poison and poison baits to eradicate large carnivores,” says Vladimir Dobrev, the BSPB’s Egyptian vulture conservation officer for Bulgaria.
“This practice still continues because it’s rooted in the mentality of people and it takes a lot of time to be changed, but we’re doing our best. The fight against poisonings is vital for the future survival and return of the Egyptian vulture. There are other threats, too, such as electrocution and illegal killing.”
The recorded population increase is due to the formation of new pairs in the core region in the Eastern Rhodopes and north-eastern Bulgaria. New pairs were found in territories that had previously been abandoned by the species for decades.
“What has happened is a dream for me,” says Dobrev. Conservationists hopes that Egyptian vultures across the rest of the Balkan region might show similar recoveries have been bolstered by news that a former breeding territory in Meteora, Greece, has also been restored after six years and a new pair of vultures has successfully bred.
The increase in Bulgaria is due to conservation efforts that started more than two decades ago. In 2011, an alliance of NGOs in Bulgaria and Greece, led by the BSPB, joined forces to apply ambitious large-scale conservation measures with their LIFE project. In 2017, the project expanded their work along the entire Eastern Mediterranean flyway, which involved 22 partners from 14 countries across three continents. Targeted research, including GPS-tracking individuals, and conservation measures were applied across the entire flyway from the Balkans through the Middle East to Africa.
“This work included the fight against the illegal use of poisons and the illegal trade of birds, fighting the illegal killing of birds, retrofitting power lines, and working with local communities,” explains Dobrev.
One of the other causes of the uplift in Bulgaria’s Egyptian vulture numbers is a ‘restocking’ program that started in 2016, using captive-bred individuals from the EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquariums) to reduce the probability of extinction and help to stabilise the population.
“The birds usually spend two months of adaptation in our ‘Egyptian Vulture School’,” says Volen Arkumarev, the BSPB’s coordinator of the Balkans’ Egyptian vulture restocking program.
“Once ready, the young vultures are equipped with GPS transmitters and released into the wild – we can follow their movements, detect threats, and study their survival and the process of adaptation in the wild.
“So far, 21 Egyptian vultures have been released from Vulture School and five of them have already reached adulthood and occupied breeding territories in the Eastern Rhodopes. This year, for the first time, two of these individuals successfully bred as part of pairs in the wild and are currently raising three chicks.”
The success of the restocking program is expected to aid long-term population recovery in Bulgaria and to help the recovery of the species elsewhere in the Balkans, as Egyptian vultures released in Bulgaria may settle and breed in other countries. Preparation’s also underway for Egyptian vulture releases in Greece in the near-future.
Around the world, vultures are in crisis. There are 23 vulture species in the world, more than half of them listed on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species as either Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered. The scavengers serve a vital ‘clean-up’ role in nature, stopping the spread of diseases, such as rabies and anthrax, to other wildlife, livestock, dogs and people.
The birds experienced catastrophic declines of up to 99.9% in some Asian countries and similar threats of extinction in some African countries. The birds face diverse threats, from power lines to the use of their body parts in traditional belief-based ‘medicine’.
The main driver of vulture deaths in Nepal, India and other parts of Asia was found to be vets and farmers using toxic Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), such as diclofenac, to treat cattle – the drugs are fatal to vultures who feed on the carcasses.
“NSAIDs are not a big issue particularly in the Balkans, as they’re not commonly used for veterinary purposes,” says Arkumarev.
“But the use of diclofenac for veterinary purposes was approved by the EU a few years ago and the first vulture poisoning related to NSAID was already reported from Spain in 2020. So we’re putting pressure on the EU to ban the use of diclofenac and other NSAIDs that are dangerous to vultures and eagles in order to avoid the catastrophe that happened in Asia.”
Conservation work across Europe demonstrates that taking the right action can reverse vulture populations’ declines.
“The massive work in the Balkans in the last two decades has brought amazing results,” says Dobrev.
“We’ve already seen so many success stories, such as the recovery of the Griffon vulture population in Bulgaria, the return of the Cinereous vulture as a breeder again in Bulgaria, and the amazing story of the Egyptian vulture recovery. Bulgaria’s a very good example of how different organisations can work together.
The same goes for other Balkan countries, such as Greece and Croatia, where the Griffon vulture population is increasing. Albania and North Macedonia have also been actively involved in vulture conservation, and I’m pretty sure positive results will come from there, too. Europe, in general, is a very good example of vulture population recoveries, which gives hope for other places in the world.”
Main image: Egyptian vulture. Credit: Dimitris Vavylis, BSPB
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