Description: Huge, broad-winged vulture, often slightly wedge-shaped tail, all dark sooty to black. Bare skin of head and neck bluish grey; head covered with blackish down; neck ruff paler in oder birds. Juvenil has bare skin pink.
Habitat: Forested areas in hills and mountains.
Food and Feeding: Feeds on carrion, form medium-sized to large carcasses, basically on mammals (rabbits and sheep).
Breeding: Laying in Feb-Apr. Nests usually in trees; 1 egg; incubation usually 54-56 days, fledging 95-110 days.
Status and Conservation: Vulnerable. CITES II. Threatened at world level. In many areas, the forest where it breeds have been cut down or will be destroyed in near future. Also suffering from lack of food, poisoning, direct persecution, etc. Has declined or disappeared from much of former range in W; exceptin is Spain. In France birds released, tiny remnant populations in Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Turkey.

Handbook of the Birds of the Worlds, Volume 2 - New World Vultures to Guineafowl. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, 1994, p. 128.