A Breeding Plan to Save the Griffon Vulture Population in Israel

Despite considerable effort, the Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) population in Israel has dropped from hundreds of nesting pairs to fewer than 40 in less than 60 years. The main causes for the decline are poisoning, electrocution and persecution which, together with other unknown factors, result in a low reproduction rate in the wild population of Griffon Vultures in Israel.

The programme focuses on saving the Griffon Vultures in Israel from extinction by increasing the breeding capabilities at the breeding centres in Israel, thus providing a relatively large number of new vultures for release to the wild every year.

The process is divided into various steps:

• To import the vultures from Spain where the population is abundant
• To breed and raise the chicks
• To expand the local array of incubators and cages for the various life stages until acclimatisation and release
• To apply four different tags to each vulture to allow individual recognition and monitoring and to detect and solve emerging problems as they occur, and to assess the project’s success.