Galana, la quebrantahuesos que soñaba con volar acompañada’ will reach more than 1,000 schoolchildren in the province of Avila, where there is currently a population of 5 lammergeyers.

On April 4, the presentation of ‘Galana, la quebrantahuesos que soñaba con volar acompañada’ (Galana, the bearded vulture that dreamed of flying accompanied) took place at the headquarters of the Diputación de Ávila, an educational project aimed at students of the first cycle of primary education in the province of Avila, promoted by the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCQ), the Segovian conservationist NGO Colectivo Azálvaro and the Diputación de Segovia, within the framework of the LIFE Pro Bearded Vulture project.

The initiative is developed through games, storytelling and models of four characters with which it is intended to explain to schoolchildren the role of necrophagous birds in the natural environment and the history of ‘Galana’. Precisely, with this name was baptized one of the two specimens of bearded vultures that the FCQ released on June 14, 2022 in the Sierra de Gredos (the other was called ‘Risco’). Two bearded vultures bred in captivity by the FCQ and joined last year by ‘Zapardiel’, ‘Chilla’ and ‘Benemérita’.

Galana la quebrantahuesos que soñaba con volar acompañada’, which will reach more than 1,000 children in the province, “seeks to sensitize and raise awareness about the importance of the conservation of the bearded vulture and its habitat in the Sierra de Gredos”, as Jesús Martín, first vice president of the Diputación de Ávila said during the press conference to present the environmental education project. For her part, Irene Jara, head of the Educational Area of the Colectivo Azálvaro, emphasized during her speech the great importance of children as the main focus for the conservation of species.

Galana, the bearded vulture who dreamed of flying accompanied’ is a new educational resource developed by the Segovian NGO, which complements the one previously launched by this organization called ‘ReciclAVES’, which highlighted the great importance of necrophagous birds in the natural environment. Through storytelling, cut-outs and a small gymkhana in which schoolchildren become bearded vultures where the group that manages to collect the most bones wins, the children learn about the species and its great environmental importance.

The objective: between 15-20 bearded vultures
The FCQ, within the actions planned in the framework of the LIFE Pro Bearded Vulture project for the recovery of the populations of this endangered bird in the Iberian Peninsula, is reinforcing its numbers in the Sierra de Gredos which, together with the Sierra de Cazorla, Picos de Europa and Pyrenees, is one of the areas in which the bearded vulture releases are being carried out. This program is supported by the regional governments of Aragón, Asturias, Cantabria and Castilla y León, as well as the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and the company Endesa.

As representative of the FCQ, during the presentation of ‘Galana la quebrantahuesos que soñaba con volar acompañada’, Carlos Sunyer, technical advisor of the Foundation, commented on some of the key lines that are guiding the actions of this organization as well as the results achieved so far, which allow us to hope to recover the bearded vulture in the Iberian Peninsula.

In this sense, the main objective at present is to “establish a breeding population of bearded vultures in the Sierra de Gredos,” said Sunyer. In fact, the actions carried out to date confirm that the reintroduction of the bearded vulture in this mountain range of Avila “is going very well”, with some specimens even going as far as the Sierra de Cazorla (Jaén), “interacting” with the bearded vultures of that region.

Looking ahead to 2024, the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture has announced plans to release another “four or five specimens”, as Juan Eugenio Revesado, FCQ technician and responsible for monitoring the birds that are reintroduced of this species in the Sierra de Gredos, commented. Thus, the goal set by the Foundation is that in 2027, the year in which the LIFE Pro Bearded Vulture project concludes, the population of this protected bird in this region of Ávila will be between 15-20 specimens.