Vultures tin wing huge distances over the shape of a unmarried twenty-four lx minutes menstruation - but non if they accept to cross an international border. In only i twenty-four lx minutes menstruation vultures tin wing 300 to 400 kilometers inward search of food. However scientists inward Espana accept discovered that Castilian vultures don't similar to wing into Portugal.
Castilian biologists fitted 71 Griffon as well as Cinereous vultures inward the Portuguese-Spanish edge share alongside GPS trackers. They discovered that the birds hardly always crossed the edge into Portugal. This edge share consists largely of river valleys as well as at that topographic point are no geographical or climatic reasons why the birds should halt at the border. There must hence move around other argue why the vultures prefer to rest inward Spain.
It is truthful that well-nigh vultures don't behavior passports, but that isn't the argue why they avoid Portugal. The argue is the availability of dead livestock. There only happens to move to a greater extent than dead brute carcasses lying inward Castilian fields than at that topographic point are inward Portugal (where the authorities collect as well as dispose of livestock). After the mad moo-cow illness scares of the 1980's & 1990's the European Union introduced directives that required the incineration of moo-cow carcasses. This police pull was passed to ensure that when cows died they were non allowed to decompose naturally. This is non adept tidings for vultures who similar zip to a greater extent than than snacking on the dead bodies of other animals.
Partly because of the environmental effects of the directive on the disposal of moo-cow carcasses as well as partly due to the containment of the illness the European Union has since relaxed the rules on the disposal of dead livestock. Member states as well as their ain regulatory bodies directly accept to a greater extent than independence equally to how farmers should dispose of dead cows. In Espana the authorities directly permit dead cattle to decompose naturally inward authorized areas. In Portugal the national authorities has done zip to alter the regulatory organisation of disposing of dead cows since the 1991 European Union directive. Therefore Portuguese farmers must yet incinerate dead cattle.
It appears that vultures accept rapidly learnt that they are unlikely to notice nutrient inward Portugal. They hence avoid the province as well as dine instead on the to a greater extent than readily available Castilian carrion.
From El Pais
