The deputy director of projects of the Biodiversity Foundation has inaugurated the first feeding point for necrophagous raptors in Badajoz. The deputy director of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Ignacio Torres, has attended together with the general director of the Natural Environment of the Junta de Extremadura, Pedro Muñoz, the inauguration ceremony of the first feeding point for threatened necrophagous raptors in the province of Badajoz.
 
This project, developed by AMUS (Action for the Wild World), is part of a scavenger conservation strategy and has had the support of the Biodiversity Foundation through its call for grants. The objective of the initiative has been to contribute to the maintenance and study of threatened necrophagous raptors with a food supplementation model that allows studies to be undertaken at the same time and to involve the population of the area in a real way, revaluing ornithological tourism as a driver of development in rural areas.
 
The feeding point inaugurated is the first created in the province of Badajoz located in the Natura 2000 Network, in the SPA (Special Protection Area for Birds) of the Sierra Grande de Hornachos. The creation of at least four more points, strategically located, is planned in order to establish links with the Andalusian, Portuguese and Castilian-La Mancha populations of these endangered species. The black vulture, the Egyptian vulture, the red kite and the imperial eagle are the four target species for which a network of feeders is being set up in the south of Extremadura in the Natura 2000 Network with a land stewardship fund with public and private entities through several municipalities and a growing network of farmers and poultry farms that collaborate.
 
The feeding points have the task of promoting the presence of the target species, developing biomedical actions to assess health aspects and identifying and quantifying the presence of pharmacological agents, heavy metals and phytosanitary agents. In addition, they allow captures to be made for studies with marking and monitoring of specimens.

This first feeding point has an observatory for photographers and another one further away as a resource to promote ornithological tourism in the region and to disseminate the importance of scavengers in the ecosystem.

The project developed by AMUS has focused on the recovery of necrophagous bird populations, involving and raising awareness among farmers and meat industries about the importance of the conservation of these species.