The bearded vulture is one of the three large European vultures. The other two are the griffon vulture and the cinereous (black) vulture. In the center of the photo, from left to right, are the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, and the black vulture, accompanied by ravens and other griffon vultures nearby.

The griffon vulture is found in several places in Bulgaria – the Eastern Rhodopes (an autochthonous population), and has been successfully reintroduced in Sliven/Kotel in the Eastern Balkan Mountains, the Vratsa Balkan, and Kresna. In the Balkans, it is also found in western Serbia, the Kvarner Archipelago in Croatia, Demir Kapija, Tikveš, and Mariovo in North Macedonia, and in several locations in Greece – Thrace, Mesta, Kaimaktsalan (in summer), Akarnanika and Mesolongi, as well as on the islands of Crete and Naxos.

The black vulture used to be found on the Balkans only in the Dadia reserve in Greece (and from there occasionally entered the Bulgarian part of the Eastern Rhodopes) until 2021–2022, when new colonies formed in the Eastern Balkan Mountains and the Vratsa Balkan in Bulgaria, as a result of a targeted project to bring back the species. Today, the species also nests in the Bulgarian part of the Eastern Rhodopes (another reintroduction project) and in Sakar (a spontaneous return thanks to the other restoration projects in the Balkan Mountains and Eastern Rhodopes). A small group now also inhabits Kresna and the surrounding areas.

The bearded vulture had completely disappeared from the Balkan Peninsula, and today only a few isolated pairs nest on the island of Crete. With the beginning of the release of bearded vultures into the wild on May 17, 2025, near Sliven, a long-term initiative has begun to return the species not only to Bulgaria but to the Balkan Peninsula as a whole. In the photo below – a bearded vulture in flight in front of snow-covered rocky alpine peaks – a classic habitat of the species.