The bearded vulture has been almost extinct in the Alps for 100 years.
They are now returning through a reintroduction project.
That's why two chicks are now on the big trip to Berchtesgaden in Spain.
Berchtesgaden
- Small beeps in the egg announce it: A bearded vulture chick will soon be hatching here. "With the egg tooth, the sharp curvature of the horn on the beak, it tries to break open the egg from you and fight its way out," Toni Wegscheider explains the strenuous procedure. According to the bearded vulture expert of the state association for bird protection, this can take up to 48 hours. As with humans, the feathered parents are particularly excited - and help as soon as they notice that the little one is having a difficult time.
In the case of “BG1112”, a nurse was even available to help with obstetrics.
He helped the chick with tweezers.
Afterwards, the only 121 grams heavy, worn-out pile had to be padded up to the now around 500 grams.
After all, a bearded vulture is not just any bird.
With a wingspan of up to 2.90 meters, it is one of the largest, airworthy birds in the world.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the graceful bird of prey with its black feathers and hook-shaped beak was exterminated in the Alps.
Since the 1970s, attempts have been made in breeding projects across Europe to reintroduce bearded vultures to the wild in the Alpine region.
Bearded vultures are returning to the Alps - they were almost extinct
And so it happens that the bearded vulture chick "BG1112" hatched out of the egg in Spain on March 11th, but it is soon to spread over Watzmann and Königssee.
Because with another young animal, which is currently still called "BG1113", Wegscheider wants to reintroduce it in the Berchtesgaden National Park.
"After no young birds hatched in the breeding pair in the Nuremberg zoo this year and the overall breeding success in 2021 was only moderate, the last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for us," says Wegscheider.
The LBV actually wanted to reintroduce two to three young animals in the Berchtesgaden National Park in the next ten years.
For a short time these plans threatened to be delayed.
And that, although everything is already prepared for the bearded vultures in the rock niche in the Klausbachtal.
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The two bearded vultures from Spain are soon to be released into the wild in this rock niche in the Berchtesgaden National Park.
© State Association for Bird Protection
The conservationists are all the more relieved to be able to receive the two bearded vultures from the Andalusian breeding center in the Nuremberg zoo at the beginning of June.
There they are examined and provided with a GPS transmitter.
A barcode is colored in their plumage.
"In this way we can document the flight and breeding behavior," says Wegscheider.
And since the reintroduction project has only been running since 1986, he doesn't know how old the animals can really get.
“Many are still alive.
In the wild, they might even live to be 60, ”he estimates.
Bavaria is hoping for young bearded vultures
300 bearded vultures are now back in the Alps. In the German and Austrian areas, however, only a few are settled. Wegscheider wants to change that: “When the young animals are a hundred days old, they no longer need the warmth of their parents. They eat on their own, but they can't fly yet. ”The ideal time to plant them in the selected eyrie in the Klausbachtal. "We throw them meat for three weeks while they save the environment as a home in this important phase of shaping," he says.
Then they fly several thousand square kilometers across the Alps. Only in order to hatch their young do they return to their Bavarian “home”. It will take some time before the first bearded vulture chicks hatch in Berchtesgadener Land. "You are sexually mature at the earliest when you are six," says Wegscheider. In the long run, however, he is hoping for plenty of offspring - so that the largest bird of prey in Central Europe is finally back in Bavaria.
