From the archive
28 Aug 2026
This spring, in the pine forests of Alto Tajo Natural Park, a cinereous vulture chick hatched. It was the first to do so in Spain's Iberian Highlands for around a hundred years. A second chick hatched nearby and died within days. The survivor is doing well and now carries a GPS transmitter, so the team watching it will know where it goes once it leaves the nest.
Neither chick happened by accident. Since 2020, a reintroduction programme covering Alto Tajo and the Serranía de Cuenca has released 37 birds into these forests. The work is led by the Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha and carried out on the ground by Rewilding Spain and the NGO Terra Naturalis. Alongside the releases, the team has put up 21 artificial nesting platforms, set out feeding stations, and built an acclimatisation aviary where new arrivals can get used to the landscape before they are let go.
Five pairs settled this spring, the first resident pairs in the region in a century. One of the successful breeders nested on a platform; the other built its own nest. Three more pairs took up platforms without laying. Jorge Layna, the Terra Naturalis biologist responsible for the programme, thinks the forests of Alto Tajo and the Serranía de Cuenca can hold a large colony. His reasoning rests on the bird's habits: the species returns to nest near its birthplace, and mated birds keep one territory permanently. Pairs matter more than chicks.
The same year brought the species back to breeding in Bulgaria's Rhodope Mountains after thirty years away, with three chicks from eight pairs. In Spain the Highlands already hold griffon and Egyptian vultures, and there are plans to reintroduce bearded vultures too, which would put Alto Tajo on course to support all four of Spain's native vulture species again. A complete scavenger community strips carcasses quickly, checks disease, and draws the wildlife watchers whose spending the villages have begun to count on.
Give the birds somewhere to sit before you expect them to stay. The Alto Tajo team installed 21 artificial nesting platforms alongside its releases, and four of the five pairs that settled this season took platforms. Nest sites, feeding stations and a settling-in aviary matter as much as the birds themselves.
Rewilding Europe · Read the source