Following the story of Fremuth, we now have another tragic incident to report.
A cinereous (black) vulture fitted with a GPS transmitter left Bulgarian airspace on April 21 and entered Romania. The Milvus Group, as the Romanian partner of the Bearded Vulture LIFE project, is responsible, amongst others, for tracking the tagged bird’s movements while it is within the country.
The vulture, named B012, spent eight days in Romania: initially near Bucharest, then two days in Dâmbovița County. It then flew across Argeș, Neamț, and Maramureș counties, before leaving Romania and heading toward Ukraine.
It briefly passed through Hungarian airspace, and in Slovakia, near the town of Horná Streda, it landed on a power pole – where, tragically, it suffered a fatal electric shock.
The bird, born in 2024, was captured in Spain and donated earlier this year to the Bulgarian nature conservation organization Green Balkans, where it became part of an extensive reintroduction program.
Every black vulture lost is a huge setback, as this species – once extinct in Romania – is classified as Near Threatened (classification on the IUCN Red List) at the European level.
Yesterday, on May 14th, three cinereous vultures were present on the territory of the country. The one named Dryan arrived on Sunday and roamed through the country, stopping in Dâmbovița and Mureș counties, and is currently in the Țara Silvaniei region.
The specimen named A34 took a look around Călărași County before returning to Bulgaria.
Midzhur, the third vulture, passed through Mehedinți County and spent the night near the country’s border.
Count on us to bring you updates whenever these impressive visitors return to our skies.
