Some probably followed the story of the young female bearded vulture BERND, hatched in 2012 in a breeding station in Spain and later released in Swiss Alps. This year, she left Alps and has started a large tour around central Europe, through Germany, Czech rep. and Poland. After weeks of travelling and several thousand kilometres, she lost her GPS tag in Germany and was later found totaly exhausted near German town Görlitz (near Polish and Czech border) by a local birder. The Swiss coordinator of the bearded vulture monitoring program Daniel Hegglin then contacted Prague zoo bird curator and asked him for help. Because of the running relocation of 220 flamingos within the zoo grounds (back from the flood evacuation pen to their normal enclosures), the curator couldn´t participate and instead asked his coleague from Liberec zoo to make the recovery action of Bernd. On 2.July Bernd has been captured in Germany and moved to Liberec zoo´s quarantine and 2 days later to Prague zoo. The initial suspection of heavy metals poisoning could be eliminated by thorough testing. Her only problem, at the end, was exhaustion and critical weight loss due to hunger. During last weeks Bernd´s put on weight and also her feathers seem better now. The zoo now waits to clear all paperwork connected with her planned transport back to Switzerland. Within 1 month she should be released back into the wildness of Swiss Alps. Hopefully her next try will be more successfull. Link to the original article.
Interesting story! I hope everything works out for this unique bird. Does anyone know why she migrated so far without eating? You know, this story kind of reminds me of a summed up Disney movie with the happy ending not yet included ~Thylo
Update: Today, Bernd has travelled in a transport box back to Swiss Alps. She is spending the night in a release aviary. And tommorow, she will be set free. I think she will wear a GPS sender again. So you can follow her next journey online.
