The four European vulture species, Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus), Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) and Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) live in the Balkan countries, although all of them declined dramatically, and especially the Bearded and Black Vulture that have almost disappeared.

In 2002, an 'Action Plan for the Recovery and Conservation of Vultures on the Balkan Peninsula and Adjacent Regions' was drafted as a joint effort of national and international NGOs. The Action Plan is promoted by the Black Vulture Conservation Foundation (BVCF), the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCBV), with the support of the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO), BirdLife International and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), IUCN Europe, the Eastern Griffon Vulture Working Group (EGVWG), the Bulgarian Environmental Partnership Foundation (BEPF) and NGO's from the range countries.

The Action Plan is a long-term strategy, which defines actions on a short, middle and long term and tries to assure their implementation as making available expertise from former vulture recovery projects in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and the Ukraine. It is to be extended to include additional countries.

For further information about the Balkan Vulture Action Plan click here > Action Plan