Bearded vultures are tough. That’s why Wally and Bavaria didn’t mind the first big hot spell of the year. “Of course the rock niche at the top of the Knittelhorn has really heated up, on the hottest day it was 36 degrees,” says Toni Wegscheider. “But you didn’t notice anything about Wally and Bavaria, they just had their beaks a little open and hackled like birds do in the heat.” You have to know that bearded vultures can cope with an extremely wide range of temperatures. “In North Africa or in Andalusia in southern Spain, where Wally and Bavaria come from, 40 degrees are not uncommon,” says Wegscheider. “And in the Himalayas, where bearded vultures live at altitudes of up to 7000 meters, things can go down to minus 40 degrees.”
In the Berchtesgaden National Park, where the bearded vulture resettlement project of the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV) began two weeks ago, project manager Wegscheider and his team observe from morning to night how Wally and Bavaria are doing up in the rock niche. And what must say? “They are still doing very well,” says Wegscheider. “Especially when it comes to eating.”
Bearded vultures are known to be scavengers. But that’s actually only half the story. They are the only species in the world that feeds almost exclusively on bones. At least as far as the adult birds of prey are concerned. “This makes them the last link in the series of large scavengers, which in this country primarily include the golden eagle and the common raven, but also the fox and – in some regions – the wolf again,” says Wegscheider. “Only when the other scavengers have as good as devoured the flesh of a carcass does the bearded vulture come and get the bones.” And if there is still too much meat on them, then he loosens it with his beak before devouring them.
At first glance you don’t suspect it. But bones are quite nutritious food and in some ways even superior to meat. “They contain up to twelve percent protein and 16 percent fat, plus many minerals,” says Wegscheider. “And about 50 percent is water.” All in all, they bring very good nutritional values. The thighbone of a deer, for example, has even more calories than the leg around it, according to Wegscheider. In addition, bones last for months. Meat, on the other hand, rots very quickly. Also, the fact that bones dry out when they are outside is not necessarily a disadvantage. Rather, the water loss promotes the shelf life of their protein and fat in the bone marrow.
Once a bearded vulture has opened a skeleton, it has food for weeks. “The animals need maybe 300 to 400 grams of bones a day, that’s all,” says Wegscheider. “The skeleton of a chamois or a downed sheep is enough for a bearded vulture for almost a month. In a year that is twelve to a maximum of 20 dead chamois.” It’s really not a lot. Especially since the range of such a bearded vulture, in which it looks for carcasses, is many times larger than, for example, the Berchtesgaden National Park. As far as food is concerned, according to Wegscheider, the bearded vultures in the Bavarian mountains certainly don’t have any problems. “There are so many dead chamois and other fallen game that it will certainly be enough,” says Wegscheider. Fallwild is the technical term for wild animals that have died in avalanches, rockfalls or falls, i.e. have not been shot by hunters.
When a bearded vulture takes on a skeleton, it’s a real spectacle. “The birds of prey bring down chamois runs 25 to 30 centimeters in size or fist-sized cattle vertebrae as a whole,” reports Wegscheider. They can tear their beak open like no other bird of prey. In addition, their oral cavity, esophagus, and stomach are enormously flexible. The animals swallow most of the bones very quickly; it usually takes less than half a minute. The walls of the esophagus are thickened to protect against sharp-edged parts. “And if a bone is too big, they grab it with their claws and carry it into the air,” says Wegscheider. “They then let it fall to the ground from a height of 50 to 80 meters, repeatedly until it is broken into pieces that are just about the beak.”
The digestive system is also unique. “The stomach acid of the bearded vulture is as hot as battery acid,” says Wegscheider. “It breaks down everything except the calcium in the bones. That is excreted later.” The bearded vulture’s excrement is extremely firm and light. “It looks like pellets a few centimeters.” It is unclear how the gastric mucosa can withstand the digestion of the bones. “With such a sharp stomach acid, a person would quickly develop an extreme gastric ulcer, and everything would become completely inflamed,” says Wegscheider. Especially since the digestion of such a bone takes a day or more. Like other birds of prey, bearded vultures produce vultures. “It also consists of indigestible horn from hooves and hair on the bones,” says Wegscheider, “and is choked out, as is usual with Gewölle”.
Of course, Wally and Bavaria are not just eating. “You are more and more out and about in the rock niche,” says Wegscheider. “And also in the front areas, where it drops off quite steeply.” Wally and Bavaria still find it somewhat difficult to get back up to the protected areas under the rock overhang from there. You have to put down a number of powerful hops and flap your wings violently until you are up again. “But both of them are busy practicing,” says Wegscheider. “And it works better and better.” If everything goes on as planned, Wally and Bavaria will be the first bearded vultures in Bavaria after more than a hundred years.
The birds of prey were once at home in the Alps around Berchtesgaden and elsewhere. But like everywhere else, they were hunted mercilessly there. At the beginning of the 20th century they were wiped out across the Alps. The reason was the popular belief that they are after sheep and even toddlers too. Bearded vultures do not harm animals and certainly not children.
In the meantime, Gypaetus barbatus, as the species is called in Latin, stands for very successful international cooperation in nature conservation. The first specimens were reintroduced in the Alps in the 1980s – in the Hohe Tauern and a little later in the Ortler and Mont-Blanc areas. The bearded vulture population is currently around 300 specimens across the Alps. Now the LBV wants to help close the gap to the Balkans. In the Berchtesgaden National Park, two or three young animals are therefore to be released into the wild every year by 2030.
Wally and Bavaria can also be seen in the livestream: www.lbv.de/bartgeier-webcam