“A Bright Future for the Black Vulture”, LIFE14 NAT/BG/649 is a project that brings together the efforts of five main partners from four European countries – Green Balkans – Stara Zagora and the Wild Flora and Fauna Fund (WFFF) from Bulgaria, the Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF) from the Netherlands, the Junta de Extremadura from Spain and Euronatur from Germany.

On 22.12.2021, a pair of black vultures (kartals) were released into the large aviary for birds of prey at the “Sofia Zoo”. The birds arrived from Spain and were donated to the zoo under the “A Bright Future for the Black Vulture” project. The pair of black vultures are named Sofia and Badajoz (the largest city in the Spanish region of Extremadura). The two birds cannot be released into the wild and are therefore provided for breeding at the Sofia Zoo, where all the necessary conditions are in place. Thus, they will become ambassadors of their species at the zoo. They are a formed pair that is expected to breed and its offspring can be released into the Bulgarian nature. The birds have spent an adaptation period in a special rehabilitation aviary for vultures of the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna and will now live in the large aviary of the zoo, where a special nesting site has been built for them.

Another significant contribution of the Sofia Zoo is its participation in the restoration and maintenance of biodiversity in the habitats of the black vulture by donating fallow deer raised and bred at the zoo.