The Watzmann east face rises 1,800 meters from the Königssee to the Watzmann southern tip, making it the longest continuous rock face in the Eastern Alps. At least seven climbing routes lead through the Watzmann east face, all of which start behind in St. Bartholomä on the Königsee. Since it was first ascent by the Holzknecht and mountain guide Johann Grill from Ramsau and the Viennese mountaineer Otto Schück in the summer of 1881, it is still a great challenge for alpinists. More than a hundred have already left their lives in her.
Wally feels right at home in the Watzmann east face. The female Bearded Vulture, which was released into the wild in June just a few kilometers as the crow flies in the Berchtesgaden National Park, stays there indefatigably. Together with her conspecific Bavaria, Wally is part of the large bearded vulture reintroduction project of the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV). SZ has accompanied the project from the start. “The Watzmann east face is also an ideal habitat for such a giant bird of prey,” says biologist and project manager Toni Wegscheider. “From her, Wally can quickly fly over into the Stone Sea. There she finds a well-set table.”
Countless chamois live in the Steinerne Meer, and in summer several hundred sheep are regularly driven up by the Austrian side, which then spend months freely on the mountain pastures there. “There are always enough carcasses and bones that the bearded vultures are after,” says Wegscheider. “As long as Wally can find enough food there, she should stay with us in the region.”
The drifting of the two bearded vultures can be followed in minute detail
Bavaria, on the other hand, has clearly said goodbye to the national park. In the second half of October, out of the blue, she started a three-day direct flight eastwards and only landed again in the Rax-Schneeberg group. It is about 80 kilometers from Vienna and is one of the local mountains of the Viennese. The flight was quite remarkable, the distance is 380 kilometers as the crow flies. The actual route was much longer. Because Bavaria flew a zigzag course along the mountain peaks.
Of course, Bavaria did not last long at the Rax. After a few days she turned around and flew to the Niedere Tauern. She is now about 50 kilometers as the crow flies from the Berchtesgaden National Park on the Dachstein – “in close proximity to the glacier railway,” as Wegscheider reports. Wegscheider can follow the doings of the two bearded vultures in minute detail. Wally and Bavaria carry state-of-the-art GPS transmitters on their backs. They transmit the whereabouts of the two birds of prey to Wegscheider’s PC at regular intervals.
They only eat carcasses and bones
Lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus) are among the most spectacular birds of prey in the world. This is mainly due to their size – their wingspan is up to 2.90 meters – but also to the hook-shaped beak and the black feathers that stick out from it like bristles. The bearded vulture got its name from them. The birds of prey are harmless. They only eat carcasses and bones. Nevertheless, they have been exterminated in the Alps. This had to do with the centuries-old misconception that they stalk sheep and even small children. In 1906 the last one in Austria was shot down.
Resettlement in the Alps began in the 1980s – from the Austrian Hohe Tauern National Park. The projects were very successful. There are currently around 300 bearded vultures again across the Alps. The LBV now wants to close the gap between the populations in the Eastern Alps and the Balkans. Wally and Bavaria are the first young bearded vultures to be released into the wild. Three more will follow in the next year. It should go on like this for nine years. In total, the LBV wants to release up to 30 bearded vultures into the mountains.
The biologist and project manager Toni Wegscheider from the State Association for Bird Protection brought up food for the bearded vultures over a period of time.
(Photo: Richard Straub / LBV)
From Wegscheider’s point of view, the project could not have gone any better so far. “Of course we had one or the other anxious moment,” he says. For example in July during the extreme rainfalls with the subsequent flash floods in the region, “when Wally and Bavaria were completely soaked and both were unable to fly and crouched in the rocks on the Knittelhorn without protection”. Or when they were attacked again and again later by a young female golden eagle that lived with the parent animals at Hochkalter. “Those were really fierce dogfights,” says Wegscheider. “Wally got a clean crack on the underside of the beak on one of them.” The scar she kept from it will probably keep Wally for life.
But none of that matters any longer. For some time now, Wally and Bavaria have not been dependent on the support of Wegscheider and his employees. The LBV people dismantled the fences and the safety ropes at the release niche, the batteries for the cameras in it and the feeders are back in the valley and the observation post has been made winter-proof. Wegscheider was up again the other day, when everything was “deserted, November gray and wet and cold”.
But then Wegscheider suddenly remembered a morning at the end of July. “I was up there on my own, Wally and Bavaria had only recently completed their maiden flights,” he reports. “Suddenly I hear such a heavy flap-flap, I look up and Wally and Bavaria are circling maybe 50 meters above me in the air, a bit awkward, but pretty sure.” That was the moment when Wegscheider suddenly had no more doubts that the release of Wally and Bavaria would be a success.