Ficedula Press Release, August 2, 2023

The Ticino bearded vultures did it!

The young bearded vulture, the first in Ticino’s history, left the nest where it was born four months ago on Monday, July 31, shortly after 1:00 p.m. It will continue to be closely cared for by its parents for several weeks.

Ficedula, the Association for the Study and Conservation of Birds in Italian-speaking Switzerland, reports that a pair of Ticino bearded vultures, which have been nesting since last fall, have successfully raised their chick to fledging—more than 150 years after the species was eradicated from our territory.

The bearded vulture chick, born four months ago, has been lovingly cared for by its two parents, who will now continue to look after the young bird, teaching it to find food—consisting exclusively of bones—for several months. It will then take at least six years before this young bird—temporarily named “Lepontino” after the Lepontine Alps—can reproduce itself.

This event marks the culmination of many efforts by the association, which began in 2016, and by those who followed this latest event day after day, logging over 1,000 hours of long-distance surveillance and capturing many hundreds of documentary photos and videos. In Ticino, Ficedula collaborates with the Pro Gipeto Foundation in Zurich and with IBM (International Bearded Vulture Monitoring) on the regular early-October counts, involving a group of over 140 volunteers.