The record for Black Vulture breeding in Bulgaria was broken in 2024. For the first time in the species’ modern history in the country, seven chicks hatched in one year following the start of the reintroduction program in 2018. Five chicks survived and were wrapped with transmitters in their nests in the Balkan mountain.

Bulgaria’s first chick hatched and fled from its nest in 2021 in the Kotel Mountains, followed by the second in 2022 in Ponor. In 2023, three chicks were successfully raised (two in the Kotel Mountains and one in Ponor).

The parents of these chicks are vultures released in the two locations in Balkan Mountain since 2018 as part of the “Bright Future for the Black Vulture” project. These birds have reached sexual maturity and formed pairs. A record 20 pairs were established in 2024, some of which occupied nests but could not lay eggs, or the eggs were infertile. One chick was killed by hail just five days after hatching, and another fell from its nest at two months old. Despite being treated at the Rescue Center in Stara Zagora, it did not survive.

Two of the pairs have been successfully raising chicks for several consecutive years.

The five Cinereous Vulture chicks have been named:

Lupi (after photographer and conservationist Lyubomir Andreev)

Dobralin (after a peak in the Vrachanski Balkan)

Enev (after Miroslav Enev, an alpinist who built successful Black Vulture nests in Bulgaria)

Cherepish (after a location in the Iskar Gorge, where the last known and documented Black Vulture nest in the area was found in the 20th century)

Dobrudzhanka (after her mother Dobrudzha)

Dobrudzhanka is the offspring of the female vulture Dobrudzha. Although the male vulture Balkan partnered in raising the chick, it is uncertain if he is the biological father, as Dobrudzha was bacheloring in the Eastern Rhodopes and returned just a few days before the egg was laid. Nevertheless, Balkan has proven to be a caring partner and a devoted (step)father to Dobrudzhanka.

Tagging the young vultures will allow for tracking in the early years of their lives.