Endangered Vultures

Recently, this handsome young vulture was found on a nearby Urbanisation. It appeared to be exhausted and 'adopted' my friend Steve Carter for a few days; allowing him to come close up to it. As it didn't eat or try to fly away, Steve called the environmental people, (Medio Ambiente). They care for wild creatures, and release them when they are able to cope.

Vultures are endangered. Apparently the EEC had decreed that domestic livestock animals that died naturally in the country, must be removed and not allowed to get into the food chain. This had a detrimenal effect on vultures and other carrion bird populations. So a chain of vulture 'restaurants' were set up in the mountains across Andalucia. When there are carcases of horses or cows to be disposed of they are taken to these feeding stations. I have walked, the steep climb to the one on 'our' Los Reales mountain. I understand there is another near Tarifa, and one near Ronda.

Missing Lynx

The Coto Donana, an hour south of Seville, is a conservation area of special importance, particularly as a breeding place for migratory birds. It is also a habitat of the Iberian Lynx; a beautiful species that grows to be about twice the size of a domestic cat. Characteristically they have tufts of hair on their ears and under the chin.

This is the most endangered of the 36 species of cats in the world. Their decline in the last 50 years has been catastrophic. It was estimated there were of 4000 in the wild in 1960. By 2000 the number was down to 400. Now, in 2009, it is believed there are only 200, with a population of about 50 in the Coto Donana region of Southern Spain, and 150 in the Andujar-Cardena area. Such small numbers may have brought this lynx close to extinction. There could be small groups in some other isolated areas. No sightings were reported but droppings have been found, and DNA analysis suggests they come from three or four individual lynx.

The main cause of the decline in lynx populations is because their primary food source, rabbits, have been decimated by myximatosis. An adult male lynx needs one rabbit a day; a female with young up to three a day. The red fox is in competition with the lynx for the scarce remaining rabbits. Saddly, development and construction erodes wild places. More roads and more traffic means the loss of more lynx. 16 were killed in the Coto Donana area between 2000-2003.

Some Iberian lynx are bred in captivity. Is this the best we can do?

Cork trees

Photo taken near Grazelema by A.W.G. Reid

Cork Oaks grow in many Mediteranean countries, and live for 150-200 years. They have a thick rugged bark, which acts as a shield against forest fires. The core of the tree is alive even when the outer layer is scorched. To harvest them the lower parts of the trunk are stripped of their cork bark by hand. The men who do the work are specialists and know when the tree is ready to 'give' the cork. It comes away cleanly in large pieces. Then it takes 8-12 years to grow another layer that is thick enough to harvest again. Ecology is undamaged by cork forests, and as none of the trees are felled, and no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides are used, they maintain environmental bio-diversity. And, after use, cork has the marvelous property of being biodegradable.

Cork grows on the mountains, less than half and hour from where I live! When they
have been freshly cut the trunks often look bright red - as if the trees are bleeding. The cork is stacked in huge heaps for drying. Cork has multiple uses. Since ancient times it has been used to make wine bottle stoppers; for roof and floor tiling; for fishing nets floats and for making bee hives. In more recent times for shoe soles, life jacket filling and sports equipment.


One tree can provide cork for 4,000 bottles of wine! But real corks can crumble, causing oxidation and making a percentage of wine undrinkable. So, wine growers are increasingly using plastic bottle stoppers and screw on caps which have zero taint. If this continues, cork forests with their eco-system benefits, will become a thing of the past.