Life Safe for Vultures celebrates the fifty years dedicated by Sardinia to the survival and well-being of the griffon vulture on the Island. It does so with a public initiative promoted by the partnership, which on this occasion will take stock of the results achieved and will preview the images of the latest release, which took place in Villasalto on October 9th. The appointment is for tomorrow, Saturday October 26th, starting at 3:30 pm at the Molentargius Regional Natural Park, in Cagliari in via La Palma 9A .
The first conservation effort to safeguard the griffon vulture in Sardinia by the WWF dates back to 1974: the Rapaci della Sardegna project aimed to monitor the population, create new protected areas, raise public awareness and activate supplementary feeding stations in Bosa, Alghero and Oliena. Then Lipu, Legambiente and other environmental associations followed one another in promoting conservation and dissemination actions dedicated to the griffon vulture. Now, fifty years later, thanks to the two projects funded by the Life programme for the environment and climate, the griffon vulture population in Sardinia is growing and expanding its distribution area even in areas where it has historically played a valuable eco-systemic role, but ended up becoming extinct after the Second World War.
The partners of the Life Safe for Vultures project – namely the Department of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Sassari, which is the leader, the Forestas Agency, the Forestry and Environmental Surveillance Corps of the Sardinia Region, E-Distribuzione and Vulture Conservation Foundation – have organized a round table in Molentargius. After the institutional greetings, the brief video reportage made by documentary makers Susan and Olav Koenig will be presented, dedicated to all the preparatory phases and the extraordinary flight of the 22 griffons in the space of a few minutes . The proceedings will be introduced by Fiammetta Berlinguer, professor at the University of Sassari and scientific director of the project.
The round table moderated by the ornithologist and scholar Mauro Aresu will follow. The naturalist photographer Domenico Ruiu will participate with Enea Beccu, former employee of the then State Forestry Company and the Forestry and Environmental Supervision Corps of the Sardinia Region, Francesco Guillot, president of Lipu Sardinia, Alfonso Campus and Federico Nurchis of the association L'altra Bosa, Giovanni Sechi of the Forestas Agency and Giovanni Paulis of Wwf Italy. The proceedings will be closed by José Tavares, director of the Vulture Conservation Foundation .