YOUNG VULTURE FOUND 'EXHAUSTED AND UNDERFED'

 Cyprus Mail 28 September 2020 - by Staff Reporter

BirdLife Cyprus

A young vulture is undergoing treatment at the recuperation centre of the Cyprus Game Service where it was taken after being found exhausted and underfed in Diarizos valley a few days ago.

BirdLife Cyprus posted the story on its Facebook page to note that the importance of the rescue as the vulture population in Cyprus is severely endangered.

The bird was spotted by a health inspector who alerted the Game Service which took the distressed bird to a specialist vet, the NGO said.

It is believed to be a young vulture that members of the programme LIFE with Vultures had been observing in its nest the last few months, it added.

Earlier this month, the programme installed a GPS transmitter on a vulture that was caught at a feeding station in the Limassol district.

The bird had been ringed and had been brought to Cyprus from Crete in 2013 as part of efforts to revive the island’s depleted vulture population.

LIFE with Vultures is a targeted conservation project for the protection of the Griffon Vulture in Cyprus. It brings together BirdLife Cyprus, the Game and Fauna Service, Terra Cypria – The Cyprus Conservation Foundation and the Vulture Conservation Foundation in a four year project (2019-2023), to tackle the main threats facing the Griffon Vulture and prevent Cyprus’ most threatened bird of prey from going extinct. The project has a €1,375,861 budget and is co-funded (60%) by the EU’s LIFE programme.