“Decades after its release into the wild, a super-ageing, bone-crunching vulture called Balthazar reveals a major conservation success…

These bone-smashing birds used to roam the mountains of southern Europe but were hunted into extinction in the Alps and were last seen there in the early 1900s, surviving only as tiny wild populations in some other areas of Europe. Beginning in 1986, however, and over a number of decades, conservationists released a total of over 260 bearded vultures bred in captivity into the Alpine regions of Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany.

Balthazar was among those early releases in the 1980s, and fathered the first chick raised in the wild in the Alps, after the species had been absent for decades. Today, bearded vultures are successfully breeding and raising chicks in the wild again. In 2025, the wild population of bearded vultures in the Alps passed 100 breeding pairs for the first time, to a total of 118. The population is self-sustaining.”

From BBC.