After a video of the two-year-old bearded vulture named Rei del Causse emerged on social media, the bird was taken under the care of the city’s zoo, which has now announced that the animal made a safe landing in its home.
The bird traveled to France by plane in a special container and is now resting in the Grands Causses National Park, just north of the southern city of Montpellier, which is famous for its wines. It is now under the supervision of the French organization Vulture Conservation Foundation.
On Saturday, the Poznań Zoo shared the vulture’s message with the world on Facebook: “Greetings from the National Park des Grands Causses in the south of France - north of Montpelier. I'm back and will be free any minute now,” it read.
The bearded vulture, which is one of the most endangered bird species in Europe, “informed his fans” that he will soon be released into the wild: “Now I'm ready to return to Nature. Where I will fly to is unknown - time will tell.”
The species is particularly deadly because of the way it kills its prey by dropping it from a height of up to 150 meters into the rocky ground. It allows it to smash bones, too large to eat whole, and sod into the bone marrow.
Rei del Causse set off on a long and arduous flight across France and Germany - sometimes battling storms - before unexpectedly arriving in Poznań.
Since then, the bird had been under a 30-day quarantine to regain its strength, and, after a series of medical examinations, feeding and careful care, the decision was made to return the vulture to its homeland.
