Vulture funds may be circling Portugal but their feathered namesakes are reportedly giving us the cold-shoulder.
New research seems to link the ‘lack of vultures venturing into national territory’ with an EU regulation over cattle carcasses.
Warns national tabloid Correio da Manhã if something isn’t done fast Portugal’s native vulture population could simply die out.
The bare bones of this story centre on “drastic” legislation brought in to combat mad cow disease, adds the BBC.
Countries were ordered to clear dead cattle from fields “immediately, and hand them over for incineration or burial.
“This means scavengers don’t have the change to feed on them”.
Spain “took advantage of a change in EU regulations in 2011 to allow regional councils to decide whether to leave carcasses out in the open – especially as the country is home to 90% of Europe’s carrion birds”.
Since then scientists have noted “an abrupt decline in griffon and black vulture visits across the border into Portugal”.
Eneko Arrondo of Spain’s Park Donaña Biological Station compiled the research and maintains it is time for Portugal’s rules on carcass disposal to “harmonise” with those of Spain.
Joaquim Teodosio of SPEA (the Portuguese society for the study of birds) agrees, affirming that “he and the country’s veterinary and forestry agencies are campaigning to have sealed-off areas set aside for farms to deposit carcasses near Portugal’s largest remaining vulture colonies”.
Citing the Correio da Manhã story, the BBC stressed that “researchers from Portugal and Spain tagged 71 carrion birds for three years, and noticed that only 13 of them ventured into Portugal over that period”.
While the problem appears to have little connection with climate or geography, the news service adds that vulture habitats have also been hammered as a result of last summer’s “devastating forest fires”.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
