EXPERTS from the Forestry Department yesterday announced they had succeeded in producing the first artificially incubated Griffon vulture.
Zeus, a seven-kilo vulture, was born 81 days ago from an egg that was taken by vultures at the Limassol zoo and incubated in Nicosia eight days after the egg was laid.
The bird will be taken back to the Limassol zoo today so that it can get used to living with its parents and will be released back into the wild next year in the Paphos district.
The griffon vulture is one of the largest predator birds and its natural habitat is the cliffs of the Mediterranean. Weighing up to 10 kg (22 lb) and with a life expectancy of 70 years, a wingspan of two and a half metres (8 feet 2 inches) allows gliding for food for hours with little effort.
The population of vultures has dropped from 30 in 1999 to 20 this year as the birds struggle with modern development, which has stripped them of their habitat and sources of food. Forty years ago, the griffon vulture population exceeded 1,000.
The griffon vulture population in Cyprus suffered a major blow in 1997 when 36 died in one go after feeding off poisoned carcasses intended for foxes.
Over the years, the bird has been threatened by hunters, but primarily from Cyprus’s shift away from traditional farming – its main source of food – to a tourism-driven economy which has seen a good deal of coastal habitat submerged in concrete or cluttered with brightly-coloured beach umbrellas.
Agriculture Minister Timis Efthymiou, who presented the young scavenger at the ministry yesterday, said the first artificial incubation aimed to help restore vulture populations safely in an enclosed environment and then release them back into the wild.
“Vultures lay only one egg a year in the wild,” he said.
“But Forestry Department experts are hopeful that in captivity the birds could lay a second egg if the first one is removed within seven to 10 days after it is laid,” Efthymiou added.
Efthymiou said the success of the first incubation meant that the method could be used in the preservation of other endangered species of birds on the island.
Forestry Department official and expert on the island’s birdlife Savvas Izekiel said vulture populations in the north had been decimated by years of hunting and poisoning, but said he was hopeful that the birth of Zeus would help save the animal from extinction on the island.
““We’ve had some health problems after Zeus was born, he was infected with tapeworm that he contracted from his parents, but we had the help of a local vet who cured the vulture free of charge,” he said.
“There are no vultures now in the north, both the Griffon Vulture and another species the black vulture have become extinct there.
“We have only one black vulture in Paphos and we are trying to determine its sex in order to import a mate in the hope that we can re-introduce the bird on the island.
