Bone-crunching vulture’s roadkill diet causes concern
A Bone-eating bearded vulture spotted visiting England from the Alps may need to be caught, say conservationists, due to concerns it is eating roadkill.
The rare bird has been spotted in Lincolnshire, where it has been seen swooping down to catch animals, landing in the middle of busy roads.
The bearded vulture, dubbed Vigo, was seen holding up traffic around the county over the past few days.
The birds are normally found in the Alps, where they were being reintroduced after being at threat of extinction, but have been known to migrate as far as the UK.
A bearded vulture was first sighted in Britain in 2016, in the skies above Dartmoor in Devon.
A spokesman for the Vulture Conservation Foundation said: “The bird is feeding and flying well and is doing fine, so there are no plans to capture it, and no one should try doing so.
“However, due to some concerning behaviour, we are monitoring the situation closely to act fast if intervention is necessary. Our research officer went to the field twice to check up on the bird this week, and we are in close contact with local organisations and farmers to stay on top of the situation.
“It is concerning that it is eating roadkill by the road. You can help by moving any roadkill away from the road, but not towards the bird (please don’t approach the bird).”
It is the only known vertebrate with a diet that almost exclusively consists of bone, seeking its prey across its usual habitats in the mountains of southern Europe, Africa and Tibet.
Bearded vultures are listed as “near threatened” by the International Union for Conservation.
The species was once extinct in Europe but has been reintroduced into the Spanish Pyrenees and the Swiss and Italian Alps.
Though Vigo does not have a ring or tag to identify its origin, work is already under way to determine where the bird came from.
Researchers from the Vulture Conservation Foundation said they had retrieved two small feathers from the area where the bird had been seen.
The feathers are now being genetically analysed to discover more about the raptor.