On October 27, 2019, the Griffon Vulture named “Luka” fell near the Drina River and “requested” people’s help. Laza, a guard from the Trešnjica River Gorge Special Nature Reserve, transferred him to a cage. Luka was named as a memory of our friend and legend of Tresnjica Luka, a man who made it possible to open and operate a feeding facility on Tresnjica at a time when there was no one else.
This is the third marked Griffon Vulture on Trešnjica, and more recently the first! In 1990, the adult Griffon Vulture named Marko was marked, with a yellow stamp and a no. “1” in collaboration with colleague Ištvan Ham. Marko nested on the Orlovača rock for the next three years and then disappeared. Then, on the Trešnica, the Griffon Vulture Mitar was marked in 1996. We later recorded him only on Uvac, so we estimate that the bird was originally from Uvac and that he got sick while visiting Trešnjica. And there is the El Greco Vulture marked in Greece at the Dadia Reserve in 2002. This bird has been nesting in Trešnjica, on the Vratnica rock from 2008. until today.
However, in recent years we have not had any marked Vultures on Trešnjica and that is why Luka is very important to us. We are working to improve the monitoring of Vultures in Trešnjica. In addition to marking, we also intend to set up a satellite transmitter to get to know about the needs and habits of Griffon Vultures from Trešnjica and to apply effective protection measures to this colony.
