It has been exactly a month since we have released three Griffon Vultures – Piroćanac, Zlatar and Marija mts – to the Special Nature Reserve “Uvac”, with satellite transmitters in the monitoring program. The first month it is the most critical period, because the vultures go into the open space. This is especially true for the Piroćanac, who hatched in the BeoZoo garden in 2016., and so far he has not even felt the freedom. The other two vultures are from the nature, but they also spent a longer period of time in the shelter. We have followed them on a daily basis and we are very pleased with their behavior for now.
In the GALLERY you can see the retrospective of the first month of satellite tracking, logs, photos from video surveillance “Rastoke”:
"Home Range" Zlatara, od 1.12. - 30.12.2018. / "Home Range" Zlatar, 1.12. - 31.12.2018.
– PIROĆANAC was a bit confused at the beginning, less flying and mostly staying on “Pavlovića brod” and near the houses. We did not record that he appeared at the “Rastoke” the restaurant for the vultures (feeding place) at Uvac, but he most likely found food somewhere else. It happens that local people throw away the remains of domestic animals for the vultures. On several occasions the rangers went to see Piroćanac, even carried food for him. Fortunately, recently Piroćanac began to fly well, he visited Uvac, Zlatar and Lake Radoinja where he spent the night. He also spent the night in the Mileševka colony. The peak of Jadovnik (1740 m above sea level) was also crossed a few days ago, and the last day of September he is on mount Giljevi. We hope that Piroćac will soon come to the restourant “Rastoke”, because it is the primary source of food during the winter.
– ZLATAR has been quite good since the beginning. His presence was recorded at the “Rastoke” several times, by satellite tracking, but also with video surveillance camera. Zlatar was also with Marija mts very often. They spent a lot of time together in the cage of the shelter at Uvac before releasing them. So, once again we can see how important is the adjustment period and that some time vultures should spent together in a cage to meet each other and establish social relationships.
– MARIA MTS was the best since the release, according to the satellite tracking log. She was the first one who was recorded on the feeding place on several occasions. The first one visited Zlatarsko jezero, where she hatched in 2017. To our great satisfaction and the other two vultures now behave like her!
The conclusion of the first month of satellite monitoring is that everything goes well. Since they are young birds, there is a possibility that some of them can go away from Uvac, but maybe they will decide to spend more time on the same place. Whatever happens next – we continue to monitor the movement of our heroes…
If you are interested in tracking live data, you can use the following links:
