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We must continue the fight for Egyptian Vulture conservation

The Egyptian Vulture New LIFE project is one of the most ambitious ever vulture conservation initiatives. It is a follow up to the project The Return of the Neophron and will attempt to reverse the negative trend and achieve sustainable growth of EV population on the Balkans (80% decline over the last 30 years).

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Urgent Action

Your Support is appreciated to strengthen the Balkan population of the Egyptian Vulture and secure its flyway!
Act now

Specific project objectives are to:

Increase awareness of and support for Egyptian vulture conservation
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Minimise the loss

Minimise the loss of mature individuals in the breeding grounds due to deliberate or accidental poisoning

Reduce mortality

Reduce mortality due to electrocution and collisions with energy infrastructure

food availability

Ensure that food availability is not a limiting factor in the breeding grounds

Mitigate

Mitigate the threats at the bottleneck and congregation sites along the flyway, including but not limited to loss by poisoning, direct persecution and electrocution
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The first picture of Anahita in Lebanon as taken by Adonis. The son of the man who found her put a black whip snake that he killed for her to eat. (Photo Credit Adonis Khatib)

The project aims to reinforce the vulture population by delivering urgent conservation measures that eliminate major known threats in the breeding grounds and along the flyway in the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East (with the involvement of 14 countries in Africa and the Middle East). Luckily, SPNL is the implementing partner for the regional “EV New Life” project, funded by EU, A.G., Leventis, MAVA and green funds. As a vivid example of this significant partnership, last October 2020, SPNL could rescue in extremis, Anahita, an immature Egyptian Vulture that was tagged and tracked with a GPS transmitter by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds – BSPB. The day she was shot by Lebanese poachers, our anti-poaching unit could track her whereabouts and release her from her captors. Today, after being treated for her injuries, she is doing well, waiting to go back to Bulgaria where she will hopefully breed a long line of EV’s. The regional “EV New Life” project’s implementation is crucial in a European and greater international context, because the stabilization, of the Balkan population of Egyptian vulture in Bulgaria and Greece, is a pivotal prerequisite to securing survival of the species in its global range.