Under LIFE Habitat Lince Abutre, it is being created a network of feeding stations for Black Vulture on private properties that will receive carcasses of domestic and wild ungulates (e.g. sheep, red deer, wild boar) from it or from the adjacent areas. This network of feeding stations, the first of the kind in Portugal, is being implemented in the Special Protection Areas of Mourão/Moura/Barrancos and Guadiana Valley. Additionally to this network, another feeding station was constructed, this time at the Mourão/Moura/Barrancos SPA scale, receiving carcasses from several different estates and hunting areas of the region. This station will receive a higher amount of carcasses and more regularly, working as a complement to the network of estate feeding stations.

By providing extra food for the Black Vulture, these feeding stations will allow this species’ settlement on both regions – the first step for the recovery of Black Vulture’s breeding population on Southeast Portugal. This network will also provide extra food for the breeding individuals of the Spanish population located nearby the border with Portugal (that use Portuguese territories as scaveging habitats) which will, eventually, be the source of the natural colonization of the Southeast of Portugal.




 

Video courtesy of the Newspaper ‘Expresso’


 

The construction of feeding stations is having in account every regulations and national and European legislation and is being done with the proper legal permits from the national veterinary and nature conservation authorities.

At the moment, four feeding stations in the regions of Moura, Mourão and Barrancos and Guadiana Valley are already licensed by the legal authorities and being regularly supplied by the project’s veterinary. Their use by Black Vultures has already been confirmed in one of the stations. Soon, more locations will take part of this network, including two that are already under the permitting process.