This year Crimean ornithologists counted 19 black and 63 white-headed vultures, against fifteen and 30-35 in 2002. Around five nesting pairs were registered among white-headed vultures and only 2-3 among black ones, reports the Crimean News Agency referring to head of the Preservation and Ecological Control over the Condition and Use of Biological Resources Department of the Republican Committee of Economical Resources Serhiy Yerniov. The only place in Ukraine where black and white-headed vultures, who are registered in Ukraine’s Red Book, is the Crimea. Today their survival is jeopardized. The reasons for this are the disappearance of the forage reserve for these big birds of prey, poachers’ traps, lack of special protection on the power transmission lines, shooting, using pesticides, etc. Moreover, in recent years cases become more frequent of illegal catch of the black and white-headed vultures by poachers who later sell them to the zoos, private collectors, or taxidermists.
In 2003 the Ukrainian Scientific Preserves Center conducted research jointly with Ukrainian and Crimean scholars to clarify the present condition of the carrion-eating birds of prey on the peninsula and ways to effectively preserve their population and increase its number. The project was initiated by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, which has been working on the problem of renewing the vultures’ European population for the last two decades. The Crimean project has become a part of this international program. Within the framework of the Vultures in the Crimean Peninsula Project it became possible for the first time in the history of researching ornithological fauna to organize purposeful research of the black vultures present condition and even a number of practical measures to help these rare birds. In general, nine feeders were held as a part of the project, with seven of them in the territory of the Crimean Nature Preserve by the Saving Rare Plants and Animals Charitable Fund. Serhiy Yerniov is positive that the time has come to create a national program to protect black and white-headed vultures. In the experts’ opinion, it would be too early to say that the black and white-headed vultures population in the Crimea had already been rescued; however, it is safe to claim that they are under protection.
