The Faia Brava Reserve, on the Portuguese side of the Western Iberia rewilding area, offers some of the best vulture watching opportunities in Europe. The newly opened Vulture hide here offers to the visitor fantastic opportunities to see and enjoy these huge raptors at point-blank range.
According to the Belgian TV-show “Dieren in nesten”, The European bison, the wolf, the brown bear, the wolverine, and the lynx are the “The Big 5 of Europe” – the continent’s five most impressive wild mammals. All these five are – and especially so the European bison which ranked as number 1 – among the symbolical species for Rewilding Europe and emblematic for the wildlife comeback in Europe.
The vision of how Europe can be rewilded showing some of the latest insights, experiences and successful working examples is presented in the brochure “Making Europe a Wilder Place, a series of presentations of the forefront of rewilding in Europe”. This 34-page brochure is now available. The proceedings are the result of a full-day seminar organised by Rewilding Europe on October 9, 2013 at WILD10, the World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain.
Rewilding Europe warmly supports this decision, which provides a perfect yearly opportunity to put the spotlight on the huge importance of wildlife and its protection. It also opens up for talking about rewilding as a real opportunity for man and nature.
The Rewilding Europe team is looking for a new, passionate, dedicated and experienced colleague to fulfil the position of Wildlife Tourism Manager (maximum 0.8 fte). He/she will be responsible to work with the enterprise team in developing a series of innovative wildlife tourism products in our rewilding areas across Europe.
Albania announced recently a ban of all hunting for two years to protect animals threatened with extinction. Minister of Environment Lefter Koka said the ban was necessary to protect species whose numbers had fallen dramatically after two decades of rampant hunting. According to the Ministry, brown bears and eagles are now seriously endangered even in the mountainous areas of Albania. The number of pheasants and wild quail have also fallen dramatically.
At the end of January, a female Maronesa cow was born in the Faia Brava Reserve, one of the Rewilding Europe core areas in Western Iberia. Totally, there are now 10 Maronesa individuals living in a semi-wild way at Faia Brava.
The Rewilding Europe initiative received a €500,000 check from the Dutch Postcode Lottery at its “Good Money Gala” on February 4. For 101 charities – and for Rewilding Europe as well – it was a big night at the Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam. The night’s highlight came when the Lottery announced it would award €14.4 million from its Dream Fund to Peace Parks and WWF to help them in their efforts to save African rhinoceros from extinction.
Bat numbers increased more than 40% between 1993 and 2011, after having declined for many years, according to a new report by the European Environment Agency. Positive news are also coming out about the comeback of the beaver.
On January 9, the newly established Italian NGO “Rewilding Apennines” signed a contract with Rewilding Europe, about a 3-year workplan, developed by the two organisations together during the last months of 2013. This after the official announcement the past October during WILD 10, the World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain, that the Central Apennines have been selected as the sixth area within the Rewilding Europe initiative.