Evaluating European LIFE conservation projects: Improvements in survival of an endangered vulture

Abstract

1. Long-lived avian scavengers are threatened worldwide and thus, are common targets of conservation plans. However, scientific evidence of both the factors limiting populations and effectiveness of management actions are greatly needed in order to develop more efficient and successful conservation strategies.2. We assessed the effectiveness of conservation actions applied within a LIFE-Nature project aimed at improving the long-term survival of the critically endangered Canarian Egyptian vulture: including education campaigns for public awareness and control of illegal poisoning and the modification of power lines to reduce the risk of accidents. We formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to obtain estimates of survival for juvenile, subadult and adult birds accounting for probabilities of resight, recovery and losses of metal and colour rings.3. Models supported a substantial enhancement in survival for subadult and adult birds and a moderate improvement for juveniles after the implementation of LIFE actions. Ring loss probabilities became notably high in the middle to long term. 4. Poisoning events became very rare after LIFE was implemented, suggesting a positive effect of environmental education and awareness campaigns. Entanglements and collisions in power lines were also efficiently mitigated. Instead, electrocutions became the most identified cause of death in the post-LIFE stage. Synthesis and applications.Our results highlight the improvement of survival in a threatened island vulture population after the implementation of a European LIFE conservation project. On small islands, with small human populations and few stakeholders, education and awareness campaigns can be especially effective for biodiversity conservation. We also demonstrate the need to complement conservation programmes with long-term monitoring, which is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of actions, especially for long-lived species.

Vultures and Livestock: The Where, When, and Why of Visits to Farms

“…This subspecies has been intensively monitored since 1998. Intensive marking schemes (metallic and plastic rings) have determined that about 90% of the population was individually identifiable in 2018 [ 31 ]. Territories were regularly visited to identify breeding birds and to record breeding parameters.…”

Too much is bad: increasing numbers of livestock and conspecifics reduce body mass in an avian scavenger

“…The effect of age on body mass of immature birds may reflect an improvement in their foraging skills over time, especially to locate carcasses of wild animals. Given the high annual rate of immature survival in our population (98%; see Badia‐Boher et al 2019), we believe this pattern is due to acquired experience, rather than selective disappearance of lighter individuals (Forslund and Pärt 1995, Sanz‐Aguilar et al 2008). Within the adult fraction, territorial birds showed higher body mass than non‐territorial ones (Fig.…”

Collateral benefits of targeted supplementary feeding on demography and growth rate of a threatened population

“…In our study, regular and frequent observations of food use, general location use and territory occupancy of colour-ringed individuals allowed definition of proxy 'areas' for supplementary feeding impact, and previous demographic monitoring provided data from choughs inhabiting the same areas in pre-feeding years. Our study therefore illustrates how collection of long-term, individual-based demographic data can contribute to understanding effects of conservation management (Badia-Boher et al, 2019;Oppel et al, 2016).…”

“…In such cases, before‐after‐control‐impact (BACI) analyses, which use pre‐intervention differences between unmanaged and managed areas as baselines to evaluate post‐ and/or during‐intervention differences, are a relatively robust method for evaluating management effects (Christie et al., 2019; Mahlum et al., 2018; Smokorowski & Randall, 2017). Multi‐year monitoring of marked individuals is then valuable in facilitating evaluation of baseline demography, and in assessing effects of interventions that are not uniformly experienced (Badia‐Boher et al., 2019; Oro, Margalida, Carrete, Heredia, & Donázar, 2008). However, individual‐based, time‐controlled evaluations of collateral effects of conservation interventions on conspecifics are still rarely achieved.…”