130925-studie-wildlife-comeback-in-europe

Drivers of recovery
The spectacular recovery of the Spanish imperial
eagle has been to a great degree the result of active
conservation effort and legal protection. The
species benefits from protection under international
and national legislation and protected areas
encompass more than 70% of the total breeding
population [1, 34] .
Habitat management has been an important
driver of recovery for the species, including
management to improve food availability and
modification of power cables to prevent electrocution
[1, 29, 34, 37] . The ‘Alzando el Vuelo’ (Flying High)
programme of SEO/BirdLife (BirdLife in Spain) and
the private land protection of Fundación de Amigos
del Aguila Imperial (FAAI), engages national authorities,
local communities and private landowners
in conserving and protecting Spanish imperial
eagle habitat, forming a large land stewardship
network. Agreements are signed with landowners
who manage their land sympathetically to Spanish
imperial eagle conservation [29, 35, 38, 39] .
In Doñana, drastic measures were taken to
mitigate declining trends, including the release
of individual eagles to reinforce the population [33] .
Spanish imperial eagle is a good candidate for
reintroduction, as dispersal is limiting and not
habitat availability [22, 24–26] . The ongoing reintroduction
of Spanish imperial eagles in Cádiz
province was initiated in 2002, first breeding
occurred in 2010 [26, 33] and today there are seven
territories are occupied [22] .
Although attitudes towards the Spanish
imperial eagle have improved (see ‘Alzando el
Vuelo’ programme [35] ), persecution remains an
issue. For example, in Portugal, the sole breeding
male was shot in 2009 [40] . Poisoning is also a critical
threat to the species, as enforcement of anti-poisoning
legislation is not currently effective [28, 31, 34] . At
present, the recovery of the Spanish imperial eagle
is still dependent on intensive management.
246