The Biodiversity Foundation has supported an SEO/BirdLife initiative for the monitoring of the red kite, whose objective is to know in detail the behaviours and migratory movements of this bird during the winter months.

So far, the SEO/BirdLife organization has already proceeded to tag a total of three red kites in Binaced (Huesca), so that their movements will be tracked via satellite, thanks to the implantation in the animal of a 22-gram emitter.

The red kite is an “endangered” bird that has seen its population reduced by 50% between 1994 and 2004, the year in which 30,000 specimens and a total of 2,000 breeding pairs were registered. A trend of population decline that has been linked to the illegal use of poison in the countryside. In addition, this project allows observing and monitoring the behaviors and positions of the three adult birds tagged from the www.migraciondeaves.org website.

In the 90s, the breeding population of Spanish origin was the second most important in the world, a position it shared with Germany, with about 4,000 pairs. Spain also welcomed a large number of wintering birds, around 60,000 birds. However, over a period of ten years, this species has seen populations halved. The information will be updated next year, when a new red kite census is launched in Spain.

The action is part of the Migra Project, aimed at the study, management and conservation of the red kite, a programme that has been developed since 2011 with the collaboration of the Iberdrola Foundation, with the aim of incorporating the latest technologies in geolocation and remote monitoring systems that allow us to know in greater detail the movements of birds inside and outside our country.