Gypaetus



The bearded vulture (scientific name Gypaetus barbatus) is one of the most fascinating birds of prey on earth. With a wingspan of nearly 3m (9ft.) and incredible skills of flight the bird is one of the impressive sights in the mountains of Europe, Asia and Africa. Superstition and ignorance (the "lammergeyer" was supposed to steal lambs and even children) had led a hundred years ago to it´s extinction in the Alps. The reintroduction started 1986 and since then the bird is back and flying again. Gypaetus barbatus is a rather modest feeder, pleased with the very last left-overs in the food chain of scavengers, - the bones. He is able to swallow them in one piece of incredible size. Even oversized specimens are no problem either: they carry them high up into the air and smash them by dropping them on suitable rocks. This may be seen as one rare example of tool usage among birds. Flying represents their main expression of life: courtship flights, playful attacks between each other, or with other species such as Griffon Vulture or Raven - or just investigating the limits of their own abilities.

The bearded vulture (scientific name Gypaetus barbatus) is one of the most fascinating birds of prey on earth. With a wingspan of nearly 3m (9ft.) and incredible skills of flight the bird is one of the impressive sights in the mountains of Europe, Asia and Africa. Superstition and ignorance (the "lammergeyer" was supposed to steal lambs and even children) had led a hundred years ago to it´s extinction in the Alps. The reintroduction started 1986 and since then the bird is back and flying again.

Gypaetus barbatus is a rather modest feeder, pleased with the very last left-overs in the food chain of scavengers, - the bones. He is able to swallow them in one piece of incredible size. Even oversized specimens are no problem either: they carry them high up into the air and smash them by dropping them on suitable rocks. This may be seen as one rare example of tool usage among birds.

Flying represents their main expression of life: courtship flights, playful attacks between each other, or with other species such as Griffon Vulture or Raven - or just investigating the limits of their own abilities.

WWF, Frankfurt Zoological Society and ViennaVeterinary University joined together for this international reintroduction project. This had started in Rauris in the province of Salzburg in 1986. The aim is to cover the whole range of the Alps by the time. The breeding pool is also running on an international level, strictly using captive birds from zoos and similar institutions only, to avoid a further endangering of the rare occurrence in the European wilderness (Pyrenees, Corsica, northern Greece and Crete) by capture and transfer.
Meanwhile there are already 4 reintroduction sites (with totally 7 locations) in the Alps of Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy. Each of them has an annual release rate of 2-4 individuals. The birds are released at an age of 3 months . It barely needs one month for them to reach their first flight - and soon they control the skies over the mountains migrating up to several hundred kilometers. The success of the release project superceeded all expectations - so scientists and volonteers were very much awaiting the first offspring in wilderness. This took place in France in 1997 and was obviously the climax of the whole project so far, hopefully leading to a permanent re-colonisation of the Alps by this remarkable bird of prey. In the meantime an continous number of chicks were hatched and raised in the wild, but still offspring from the captivity is the main factor to increase their numbers. CAM 3001 followed this release project from the very begin as wildlife filmmaker and photographer. A 16/S16mm film project emerged from a very modest starting point, but in the meantime it seems to become something like a "project of a life-time". Subsequently video was added as the contemporary mean of movie documentation, especially using now the HD (high definition) quality devices. Parallely to this work quite a number of still photographs were taken too.

WWF, Frankfurt Zoological Society and ViennaVeterinary University joined together for this international reintroduction project. This had started in Rauris in the province of Salzburg in 1986. The aim is to cover the whole range of the Alps by the time.

The breeding pool is also running on an international level, strictly using captive birds from zoos and similar institutions only, to avoid a further endangering of the rare occurrence in the European wilderness (Pyrenees, Corsica, northern Greece and Crete) by capture and transfer.

Meanwhile there are already 4 reintroduction sites (with totally 7 locations) in the Alps of Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy. Each of them has an annual release rate of 2-4 individuals. The birds are released at an age of 3 months . It barely needs one month for them to reach their first flight - and soon they control the skies over the mountains migrating up to several hundred kilometers.

The success of the release project superceeded all expectations - so scientists and volonteers were very much awaiting the first offspring in wilderness. This took place in France in 1997 and was obviously the climax of the whole project so far, hopefully leading to a permanent re-colonisation of the Alps by this remarkable bird of prey.

In the meantime an continous number of chicks were hatched and raised in the wild, but still offspring from the captivity is the main factor to increase their numbers.

CAM 3001 followed this release project from the very begin as wildlife filmmaker and photographer. A 16/S16mm film project emerged from a very modest starting point, but in the meantime it seems to become something like a "project of a life-time". Subsequently video was added as the contemporary mean of movie documentation, especially using now the HD (high definition) quality devices.
Parallely to this work quite a number of still photographs were taken too.