The Goosander
was not recorded breeding in Bulgaria till recently. We present herewith the very first record of the species breeding in the country and estimate the size of its breeding population in ...Bulgaria. Thus, we propose a change in its status in the country with more effort to be invested in the survey of this small, isolated population.
The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) has been classified as 'Endangered' due to rapid population declines across its range. Thus, exhaustive studies on its demography may serve as an ...important stepping stones for successful conservation programs. Breeding performance is one of the main components of the demography of a raptor population. Evaluating reproductive rates is easier than other demographic parameters, while remaining a very useful metric to identify factors driving raptor population trends. Here we present the breeding performance of the species' population in Bulgaria as a result of a long-term monitoring (2005-2016). The studied population shows high breeding performance, based on a breeding success (1.11 ±0.13 fledglings / laying pairs), productivity (0.88 ±0.1 fledglings / occupied territories) and fledgling success (1.2 ±0.1 fledglings / successful pairs), all among the highest recorded in Europe. Pairs breeding in territories with high occupancy rate produced 88% of the fledglings. However, over the last 14 years the Egyptian Vulture population in Bulgaria has declined with 51.7%. We discuss the causes underlying these results and recommend the implementation of conservation measures on a larger scale in order to secure the survival of the species in the country.
Avian scavengers are declining throughout the world, and are affected by a large number of threats such as poisoning, electrocution, collision with man-made structures, direct persecution, changes in ...agricultural practices, landscape composition, and sanitary regulations that can reduce food availability. To formulate effective conservation strategies, it is important to quantify which of these factors has the greatest influence on demographic parameters such as territory occupancy and breeding success, and whether quantitative models can be transferred across geographic regions and political boundaries. We collated territory and nest monitoring data of the endangered Egyptian Vulture
Neophron percnopterus
in the Balkans to understand the relative influence of various factors on population declines. We monitored occupancy in 87 different territories and breeding performance of 405 territory-monitoring years between 2003 and 2015, with an overall territory occupancy rate of 69% and a mean productivity of 0.80 fledglings per occupied territory. We examined which of 48 different environmental variables were most influential in explaining variation in territory occupancy and breeding success in Bulgaria and Greece, and tested whether these models were transferrable to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Territory occupancy and breeding success were affected by a wide range of environmental variables, each of which had a small effect that may not be the same across political boundaries. Both models had reasonably good discriminative ability area under the receiver-operated characteristic curve (AUC) for territory occupancy = 0.871, AUC for breeding success = 0.744, but were unsuccessful in predicting occupancy or breeding success in the external validation data set from a different country, possibly because the most influential factors vary geographically. Management focussing on a small number of environmental variables is unlikely to be effective in slowing the decline of Egyptian Vultures on the Balkan Peninsula. We recommend that in the short term the reduction of adult mortality through the enforcement of anti-poison laws, and in the long term the adoption of large-scale landscape conservation programs that retain or restore historical small-scale farming practices may benefit vultures and other biodiversity.
Since 1990, nature conservation NGOs are the main players in the running of nation-wide research and monitoring schemes for raptors in Bulgaria. Among them, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection ...of Birds (BSPB) and Green Balkans are most active, covering the most threatened diurnal raptors in the country. The key species covered by comprehensive monitoring schemes are the Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca, White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla, Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus, Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus, Black Vulture Aegypius monachus, Saker Falcon Falco cherrug and Red-footed Falcon F. vespertinus. Information on their distribution, numbers, breeding success, productivity, diet, movements etc. is gathered on annual basis. The Buzzard Buteo buteo and Kestrel F. tinnunculus are also regularly monitored at the national level by the Common Bird Monitoring scheme. Distribution of all raptor species has been studied for the purpose of the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Bulgaria. The contemporary satellite telemetry methods revealed important aspects of movements and threats to eagles and vultures from Bulgaria within the country and abroad. Main threats for the raptors in Bulgaria are related to habitat loss, unnatural mortality and disturbance. The main gaps in raptor monitoring in Bulgaria are related to the lack of coverage of most of the diurnal species and owls. There is a strong national and international cooperation in conjunction with the work concerning Imperial Eagle, Egyptian and Griffon Vultures. However, further enhancement of cooperation on other raptor species and issues such as lobbying for implementation of raptor-friendly agricultural practices and enhancement of various economic sectors are needed
PDF
