The Rewilding Apennines team have begun operating a supplementary feeding station for griffon vultures in the Monte Velino Nature Reserve. By ensuring a safe supply of food for the birds, the station will support the recovery of the species, and is a step towards realising a landscape where vultures are sustained entirely by the carcasses of wild animals.

A long-term release programme means populations of red and fallow deer in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains are gradually recovering. As the landscape becomes wilder and healthier, there are benefits for local communities too.

Following efforts to ensure they stay, survive and thrive in the local landscape, a group of 14 cinereous vultures have just been released into Bulgaria’s Eastern Rhodope Mountains. This will help to strengthen the circle of life and represents another step towards realising the local rewilding vision.

As a keystone species, vultures are an integral part of healthy ecosystems. The discovery last year of a cinereous vulture colony in the Greater Côa Valley is therefore good news for wild nature and local rewilding efforts.

The European rewilding movement has come a long way since Rewilding Europe was founded in 2011. The second in our series of impact stories takes a look at how rewilding has strengthened the Circle of Life in Europe over the last decade.

Over the last five years the LIFE vultures initiative has helped to stabilise and grow griffon and cinereous vulture populations in the Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria and Greece. Future rewilding efforts will build on the initiative’s achievements.

Griffon vultures continue to do well in the Rhodope Mountains rewilding area in Bulgaria, with 72 chicks born this year. This is good news for wild nature and people and a well-earned reward for the local rewilding team.

Vultures are a vital yet vulnerable part of European wild nature. A new memorandum of understanding between Rewilding Europe and the Vulture Conservation Foundation will enhance essential support for European vulture conservation and rewilding.

On the face of it, vultures aren’t the most endearing birds. But closer investigation reveals just how amazing they really are, and why their conservation is so important.

More than 70 griffon vulture chicks have so far hatched in the Rhodope Mountains rewilding area in Bulgaria this year. This encouraging figure continues the upward trend in numbers experienced in recent years.