The Griffon Vulture is not a subtle presence.
With a wingspan stretching up to 2.8 metres and a weight of nearly 10 kilograms, it commands the sky rather than occupying it. When it catches a thermal, it barely moves a feather — just rises, circles, and surveys vast distances with eyes evolved to spot carrion from kilometres up. In mountain ecosystems, vultures perform a function that no other species can fully replace: they clean the landscape of carcasses, preventing the spread of disease and cycling nutrients back into the soil.
For more than 70 years, that function was missing from Romania's mountains. The vultures were gone. Now, 25 of them have come home.
**A Long Journey from Extremadura**
The birds began their journey in the Extremadura region of western Spain — one of the last strongholds of the Griffon Vulture in Europe. Spain hosts an estimated 95% of the world's Griffon Vulture population, making it both the species' refuge and the source for rewilding efforts across the continent.
Several of the 25 birds had been found injured or weakened in the wild and nursed back to health at the **AMUS Wildlife Recovery Centre** in Villafranca de los Barros. After quarantine and preparation for transport, they were donated by the **Junta de Extremadura** — the regional government of Extremadura — to the Romanian programme.
The transfer was coordinated by the **Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF)**, working with **Foundation Conservation Carpathia** on the Romanian side, along with the **Milvus Group Association**, ING Bank Romania, local municipalities, and veterinary authorities in Argeș County.
**Into the Carpathians**
The destination was a specially designed acclimatisation aviary near the commune of Rucăr, in the Southern Carpathians — at roughly 1,150 metres above sea level. The aviary, around 160 square metres and six metres high, was built to withstand harsh mountain winters.
From inside it, the birds can see the cliffs above. Those cliffs — in the right conditions, with enough birds and enough time — could become nesting sites. That is the goal.
Each bird was fitted with an identification ring on arrival and given a health check. The soft-release approach — holding the birds in the aviary for a period to allow acclimatisation before opening it to the wild — is the standard method for large-scale bird reintroductions, designed to improve survival rates in the early, vulnerable weeks.
**Why Vultures Matter**
It is easy to underestimate what a vulture does. They are not the glamorous apex predators of wildlife documentaries. But in ecological terms, they may be more important.
Vultures are **obligate scavengers** — the only large birds that evolved specifically to consume carcasses. Their highly acidic digestive systems destroy pathogens, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, and cholera, that would be lethal to most other animals. In landscapes where vultures have declined or disappeared, carcasses accumulate, disease spreads, and opportunistic scavengers — often invasive ones — fill the gap imperfectly.
Restoring vultures to the Carpathians isn't just about the birds. It's about restoring a function the ecosystem has been missing for seven decades.
**A European-Scale Effort**
The Romania reintroduction is part of a broader push to restore vulture populations across southeastern Europe, where the species was once common from France to the Caucasus. The VCF has coordinated similar reintroductions in Bulgaria, Croatia, France, and Portugal — with Spain consistently serving as the donor population.
Further transfers to Romania are already planned. The ambition is not just a small, isolated flock, but a self-sustaining population resilient enough to establish territories, breed, and eventually spread across the Carpathian Arc.
Alongside the conservation work, the project is developing **nature tourism** infrastructure — including a new visitor centre called *"Eagle House"* — to connect local communities to the birds and create sustainable economic value from their presence.
**The Silence Is Over**
For 70 years, the thermals above Romania's highest ridges rose and fell without a vulture to ride them. That has now changed.
Twenty-five birds sit in an aviary in Argeș County, looking out at cliffs. Above them, somewhere in the updrafts, their descendants might one day circle. 🦅
*Sources: Vulture Conservation Foundation (4vultures.org) · Foundation Conservation Carpathia · AMUS Wildlife Recovery Centre · Junta de Extremadura*
