Egyptian Vulture conservation in Asia - an update from the Hawk Conservancy Trust

Earlier in the year, Birds on the Brink supported and collaborated with the Hawk Conservancy Trust on a project whose aim was to aid conservation of Egyptian Vultures in Asia. A central character in the project is Dr Vladimir Dobrev from the Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds. Jamie McKaughan and Campbell Murn from the Hawk Conservancy have been in touch to update us on recent events.

Egyptian Vulture: Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

They told us: ‘Yesterday we had a great catch-up call with Vlad. In the most recent field season, from the end of July and throughout August, they managed to tag four more Egyptian Vultures. The additional tags mean that a total of 16 Egyptian Vultures have now been fitted with transmitters, of which 13 are still active. They also organised a training workshop on vulture trapping, tagging, and monitoring in Uzbekistan, with experts gathered from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, as well as attendees from Armenia, Bulgaria, the UK, and Spain as well. They trained 13 people, eight of whom were regional experts. These included some key contacts in the Ministry for Environment, which may benefit future project work. They also recorded Egyptian Vulture numbers at two different congregation sites, one of which reached around 250-260 birds, which is very positive.’

Jamie and Campbell continued: ‘During the fieldwork, Vlad also learned that during the winter one of the dumpsites also hosted Griffon and Cinereous Vultures. Vlad hopes to have a winter field season in November in an attempt to complete further congregation counts.

We will catch up in November with the wider group to look at next steps and a strategy for working on publications from the data collected so far. We are also hoping to have another conference for the International Vulture Programme here at the Hawk Conservancy Trust in January or February. Dates are to be finalised, but we anticipate that Vlad will be here in person, which will be fantastic.’