But, following on yesterday's "shoot the birds" it has to be said that much is done in conservation in France in regard to one creature that no one would dream of eating, and that such an urge can come only from a fine sense of keeping a balance in nature. It concerns a vulture, the Lammergeyer or bearded vulture: Gypaetus Barbatus. This applies mainly to the Haute Savoie region of France, but also touches on Switzerland and the Alpine arc; and the authorities have just come up with another budget to sustain this scavenger or carrion eater, and intend to employ six young people in continuing the work for several years. You may remember that this programme , already described here, began in 1976, since when 88 of these vultures have been released. The females do not lay eggs until they are seven years old and, because they scatter wildly, it was discovered only in April 1997 that the first little "Gygy" saw the day. Since then this pair will have had one nestling yearly. This was in the Haute Savoie region. And how could you hope to control the birds once released? They fly into electricity cables, poachers shoot them, or they just disappear from the region. Five young birds have been discovered on the French Atlantic coast and the North Sea coast.
Now that the Rhone -Alpes region has signed a new contract to promote the campaign further, Jean-Loup Fleury, vice-president of the regional council, says that the bird "is an integral part of our patrimony and man is duty-bound to help the species which are disappearing and, as far as possible, to help them find their place again". This was at a ceremony of "baptising" the latest-born of the species, which was given the name Rhonalp.
Might this revival campaign give us in Ireland the impetus to try to restore that famous poetical bird An Bonnan Bui, (i fada) the bittern? Maybe Duchas is already working on it.