Fawn-coloured Vulture

The fawn-coloured Vautour ( Gyps fulvus ) is a bird Charognard.

Description

Like the majority of the vultures of the gyps family, the neck and the head are stripped making it possible to excavate in the carcasses without soiling the feathers.

Lifestyle

The fawn-coloured vulture is a bird sailplane; heavy and massive, it uses the current ascending thermics to plane and can thus traverse hundreds of kilometers in the search of food.

Food

Exclusively vulture it nourishes itself on the carcasses of large animals which it detects the top of the sky thanks to its adapted vision. Nowadays, following the rarefaction or the disappearance of the large wild animals (Moufflon S, Chamois, Ibex S, Auroch S) the fawn-coloured vulture nourishes mainly dead pets (sheep, cows).

Reproduction

The fawn-coloured vultures nest in height (cliffs) to benefit from the drafts and to rise without tiredness. The nests are gathered in colonies.

Habitat

Mountains, deserts and great released extents.

Ecology

Victims of their bad reputation, the vultures regressed in the Mediterranean circumference. Thanks to programs of protection and of reintroduction (in particular by LPO) the fawn-coloured vultures reconquered certain territories of the South of France. Since 2003 the vultures are victims of the prohibition of the mass graves with open sky (European directive following the Mad cow) which is always applied in Spain (a country where the vultures are well represented) and are in lack of food.

Thus famished vultures would have attacked still alive cows (wounded cows or in difficulty) without a proof not being provided. May 11th, 2007, they would have killed a cow in good health with Ilharre, close to Bayonne, and on June 11th of the same year, would have tried to attack a hiker recently deceased. Bands of fawn-coloured vultures in the search of new territories are seen to hundreds of kilometers of their territory (Northern of France, Germany). Currently (June 2007) to 200 vultures Belgium and the surroundings fly over.

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