Year-round differences in the use of roosting sites in an endangered vulture reveal gaps in protected areas coverage

Protected areas (PAs) are one of the main tools used to promote species persistence and biodiversity conservation worldwide. Assessing the use and effectivity of protected areas (e.g., PAs and Nature 2000 network), by using forefront methods such as GPS technology, has grown in importance over the last decades due to the advantages these methods offer. In the case of birds, the use of these technologies provides vital information to identify key areas and habitats throughout their movement ecology and has become a particularly useful tool to identify key areas for threatened species of birds that should be declared legally protected. The Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus is an Endangered social scavenger species. Though roosts are key for the species, the protection is mainly centred on nesting places and not at roosting sites, most of which are unknown. We used year-round movement data from 11 Egyptian vultures to identify and analyse the use of their night roosts according to the frequency of use and we assessed their protection. We identified 50 ‘multi-use roosts’, 80 ‘occasional roosts’ and 339 ‘one-night roosts’. PAs cover 12.5% of the identified roosting sites, while Nature 2000 network sites give cover to only 20% of the identified night roosts under a legal protection figure. However, Important Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), a network without a legal figure, cover 71% of these roosts identified. We thus encourage managers and conservation practitioners to use tracking technologies to identify vital areas for threatened species and assess their protection in combination with fieldwork.

This study has been fully financed by a project funded by SALORO S.L.U. JM was supported by Generalitat Valenciana and the European Social Fund postdoctoral grant (CIAPOS 199/2022).