Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE RESEARCH
Volume 59, Issue 3, Pages 421-429Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10344-012-0687-2
Keywords
Capture-mark-recapture; Bovine spongiform encephalopathy; Home range; Foraging displacements; Vulture restaurant; Spatial ecology
Funding
- Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [JCI-2011-09588]
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The outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy provoked restrictive European sanitary legislation that forced farmers to remove livestock carcasses from the wild. This had serious repercussions for the scavenger raptor guild. Against this background, we developed a study to analyse the foraging movements of Eurasian griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) in northern Spain. We ringed 241 griffon vultures with alphanumeric plastic rings in Biscay between 2000 and 2011 and set experimental feeding stations in 24 sites over an area of 10,614 km(2); recording re-sightings of the ringed vultures between 2005 and 2012. Using these re-sighting records, we tested whether birds randomly moved long distances whilst searching for food, or if vulture re-sightings were restricted to a few feeding sites within a limited area. We summarised 329 field-work days, with an average of 2.06 ringed vultures re-sighted per day, accounting for 1,017 re-sightings. Adult vultures were detected in three separate foraging nuclei within the study area. Movements out of the main foraging nuclei were statistically less frequent than would be expected if adult vultures accessed all resources at a similar rate. Once established at breeding areas, subadult vultures behaved in the same way as adults. Our results suggest that vultures' home ranges are largely restricted to zones close to breeding areas. This has important consequences from a conservation point of view, suggesting that management decisions should take into consideration spatial scale effects.
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