Griffon vulture Gyps fulvus
Nature’s bald waste collector.
The griffon vulture lives in mountain meadows and pristine, warm regions in southern Europe and North Africa.
The griffon vulture in a nutshell
- eats
- carcasses of dead animals
- inhabits
- Southern Europe and North Africa
- excels at
- sharp-sightedness over great distances
Taking off and soaring
With a wingspan of at least 2.5 metres, the griffon vulture is a very large bird. It soars above the landscape at exceptionally high altitudes of up to 4.5 kilometres. The vulture requires a lot of airspace when taking off, and it searches for carcasses from the air. It also keeps a close eye on fellow vultures.
Carrion bird
Griffon vultures are carrion birds, eating only dead animals. That might sound rather unsavoury, but griffon vultures actually keep the landscape clean! By eating the carcasses of dead animals, they help to prevent diseases and recycle nutrients. This makes them an extremely important part of their ecosystem.
Jostling for food
A griffon vulture has incredible eyesight and can spot prey from a distance of 6.5 kilometres. When a vulture finds a carcass, it swoops down at tremendous speed. Other vultures quickly follow, and a crowd of up to 30 griffon vultures can be seen vying for a single carcass within 10 minutes.
Support from ARTIS
ARTIS has been supporting a griffon vulture reintroduction project in Sardinia since 2018 and contributes to scientific research by sponsoring GPS transmitters. In 2022, griffon vultures from ARTIS were also released for the third time in Sardinia, where they now live in the wild. The GPS transmitters and scientific research are helping to track the previously released vultures and monitor their behaviour in the wild. They appear to effortlessly join their wild fellows with no problem, and one of the released vultures has even already hatched an egg. A total of seven vultures from ARTIS are now soaring the Sardinian skies.