HawkTalk Issue 90 Spring 2022

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HAWKTALK SPRING 2022 ISSUE 90

Egyptian Vulture Project

First ever records of Egyptian Vulture migrations in Central Asia!

We are very excited to share the initial results from this project, showing the first recorded migration routes of Egyptian Vultures in Central Asia. Three tagged Egyptian Vultures surprised us with some fascinating results; they each took very different routes after they fledged in September 2021, with one traveling more than 6000km!

Migration is an extremely dangerous time for birds, and populations of many migratory species are in rapid decline; as is the case for the Endangered Egyptian Vulture. A big challenge with conserving migratory species is that birds often encounter different threats in the different areas where they spend their time. The variation in the threats Egyptian Vultures face is well studied for birds in Europe, Middle East and Africa, but very little is known about the threats to Egyptian Vultures that migrate in Central Asia. The Egyptian Vulture project aims to address this critical gap in knowledge, so enabling us to understand the threats they face and how to implement effective conservation actions for this Endangered species.

The project is run by Dr Robert (John) Burnside at the University of East Anglia, Vladimir Dobrev (Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds), Anna Ten and Valentin Soldatov (Institute of Zoology, Uzbekistan). We are thrilled to be involved in this important research, by funding satellite tags to fit to some of the vultures and sharing exciting updates and news on the project. This research is being carried out in Uzbekistan, which is an ideal location to focus on migratory vultures from the central Asian population. Uzbekistan is also at the crossroads of two major migration flyways used by many bird species, so research on migration routes and the major threats along them is beneficial for a number of species using the flyways.