The Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCQ), which has been trying to recover this threatened species from the north of the Peninsula for decades, reported this Monday the death of the first specimen of this type of vulture in Spain due to a collision with a wind turbine. The corpse of farmhouse, which was released in the summer of 2022, was located last Friday in the Refoyas wind complex, located between Castellón and Teruel, thanks to the fact that it was part of the FCQ recovery program and carried a device that allows it to be monitored by satellite. After the autopsy was carried out this Monday, the FCQ has announced that it will take this death to the Teruel Environmental Prosecutor’s Office. “It is the first time in Spain that a bearded vulture has died from being hit by a wind turbine,” this organization has warned.
The FCQ has been very critical in recent years of the implementation of several wind farms in the province of Teruel and has battled against them. In fact, a year ago it decided to suspend the release of specimens in the Sierra del Maestrazgo because the “high risk of collision and death to which the projected deployment” of wind turbines “would expose the species makes it unaffordable to continue” with the plan. The bearded vulture was on the brink of extinction in Spain, but in recent decades it has taken flight again in some peaks of the Peninsula thanks to recovery programs such as the one led by the FCQ.
Before stopping the project in the Maestrazgo, this organization released a pair of specimens in the area two years ago, a male and a female. Both have passed away. Sabine He died when he was four months old when he collided with a power line and now Masia due to the collision with the wind turbine.
His body was located by FCQ technicians and nature protection agents of the Government of Aragon. He was only 40 meters from the wind turbine and had multiple traumas, as Gerando Báguena, director of the reintroduction project at the Maestrazgo, explains to EL PAÍS. This wind complex is currently managed by the companies Renomar and Acciona, according to the foundation.
“We are not against wind energy,” Báguena warned, “but in many parks preventive technologies are not being applied to avoid the death of fauna.” He refers, for example, to the systems that stop the blades of wind turbines when the approach of birds is detected. “Meanwhile, companies invest huge amounts of money in campaigns to say how sustainable they are,” she criticizes.
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After this death, which confirms the fears that led to stopping the reintroduction of specimens into the Maestrazgo, those responsible for the FCQ are not considering restarting this program, which was financed with European funds. “This jeopardizes the recovery of the species in the northwest of the Peninsula,” laments Báguena.
The beacon he carried Farmhouse It allowed the movements of the specimen to be monitored by satellite on a daily basis by FCQ technicians. But on Friday an activity anomaly was detected that led to the suspicion that the female had suffered an accident. When the professionals arrived at the place marked by the beacon, they found her body.
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