International Project Aims to Restore Rarest Falcon Species in Bulgaria
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Loading... - Drew Hamilton
- 19 Jan 2022
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A team of scientists and experts from Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and the Netherlands are embarking on a project aimed at enabling the population recovery of the Saker falcon (Falco cherrug), the biggest and rarest con species in Bulgaria, and its key habitats in this country and in southern Romania. Officially launched in October 2021, the LIFE for Falcons project is to provide stopover sites, wintering grounds, and potential breeding territories for falcons from the larger population in Hungary and Slovakia that are known to spend significant time in Bulgaria and Romania.
The five-year project is coordinated by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB). Also participating are Bulgaria's Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research and the Green Balkans - Stara Zagora nongovernmental organization, the Romanian Ornithological Society, the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, Germany, and The Habitat Foundation in the Netherlands. The project has a total budget of 2,448,489 euro, more than half of which are provided under the EU's LIFE programme.
The Saker falcon was listed as globally endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2021. The European population of the species is declining as well. In Bulgaria and Romania, the Saker falcon was widespread during the first half of the 20th century, followed by a significant decline that saw the disappearance of all but 10 per cent of this bird's population here by 2010, according to information on the LIFE Public Database. The BSPB places the number of known nesting pairs in Bulgaria at just one.
The 2010-2014 cross-border project "Conservation of Falco cherrug in Northeast Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia" significantly increased nesting and feeding opportunities for the species in Bulgaria and addressed common threats to the Saker falcon, such as power lines, poaching, and pesticides. Read More…
