UK red kites bring Spanish cousins back from the brink

A British red kite emerges from an aviary in the remote hills of western Spain and takes flight. At six months, it’s his first taste of freedom.

Without a sound, it rises high into the sky above the scrubland and disappears within seconds into a forested valley in the distance.

This is the latest version of a conservation story that has come full circle.

Nearly four decades ago, the birds were extinct in England and Scotland, with only a few pairs remaining in Wales.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, red kite chicks from Spain and Sweden were released into the Chilterns on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border.

It has been such a success that the species now thrives throughout the UK, with estimates of more than 6,000 breeding pairs, or around 15% of the global population.

Dr Ian Evans, of Natural England, was an early pioneer.

He said: “There were a lot of unknowns. The first group we released, we thought they might just die or move away.

“In 1991 we had our first breeding pairs and that was a real eye-opener because we said, ‘Well, this can be successful.’

“This was the springboard for establishing other release sites in England and Scotland.”

Red kite chicks born in Britain have now been taken to south-west Spain as part of a four-year project to revive the population from the brink of extinction.

The region has fewer than 50 breeding pairs due to predators like the eagle owl and human factors such as illegal poisoning and electrocution.

In 2022, conservationists obtained special licenses from Natural England to collect red kite chicks, mainly in Northamptonshire, and send them to the Extremadura region of Spain.

More than 120 chicks have been collected, around thirty of which are exported each year.

About the red kite

• It is one of Britain’s largest birds of prey, known for its reddish-brown body, long wings, forked tail and distinctive ‘meow’ calls.
• Once considered a threat to game birds and domestic animals like cats and dogs, the red kite was hunted to the brink of extinction in the UK, and at one point there were only a few breeding pairs in central Wales.
• Red kites are largely scavengers, feeding on carrion and small prey such as rabbits
• The birds breed exclusively in Europe and are threatened with extinction due to illegal persecution through shooting, poisoning and trapping.

The chicks are flown to Madrid, then transported 385 km south to a wildlife hospital in Villafranca de los Barros, run by Accion por el Mundo Salvaje (AMUS).

When I arrive, the small team, led by ornithologist and project manager Alfonso Godino, is hard at work.

Each chick must be weighed, measured and labeled before being fitted with a GPS backpack that allows experts to track them.

The birds appear lifeless when placed in position. Mr. Godino tells me that they play dead when they feel threatened.

When asked if the marking is painful, he says it is a minor discomfort, like having your ears pierced.

Alfonso says the juveniles quickly get used to the large tags, which are necessary to be able to observe them from the ground.

The birds are then transferred to aviaries near the Portuguese border for two weeks to acclimatize to their new environment.

The release site is calm and isolated. There is a strong smell of rotting flesh coming from a sheep carcass that was left to attract red kites to feed here.

When the door is removed, I half expect the chicks to scurry outside but, other than a few flapping inside the aviary, nothing happens.

It takes them several hours, as if to regain courage, before one by one, they leave the safety of the aviary and fly into the wild.

“Now is the exciting time where they are in the wild, they can learn to forage for food, avoid predators, interact with other species in the area… thanks to GPS we will closely monitor these birds that we have released,” Alfonso tells me.

But it’s an anxious time for AMUS field technician Sofia Marrero.

“Mortality of raptors in general is very high during the first years of their life,” she explains. “So now it’s a little hard because you already know that some of them might not reach sexual maturity, so it’s a bittersweet moment.”

In fact, only about a quarter of the red kites released during the project survived.

The greatest threat comes from predators and natural causes.

By 2023, the owls killed half of the red kite chicks newly released under the project.

In response, the AMUS team adapted when and how chicks are released to increase their chances of survival.

Much work has also been carried out to adapt thousands of kilometers of electrical cables to reduce the risk of electrocution.

But the greatest human risk to birds of prey lies in illegal poisoning.

Between 2020 and 2024, 3,060 red kites were tagged and equipped with GPS as part of the Life EuroKite project, covering 40 project areas in 12 countries.

As of September 2024, 1,377 tagged red kites had died – 622 from natural causes, including predation, while 195 had died from poisoning and 54 from illegal shooting.

Experts believe these figures represent only the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of illegal persecution.

In the UK, the RSPB works with European partners to provide advice on how to investigate poisoning cases.

A report from the charity revealed last year that at least 1,344 birds of prey were killed in the UK between 2009 and 2023.

“Raptor persecution is directly linked to game reserves, particularly in lowland pheasants and partridges as well as upland grouse,” says Mark Thomas, head of investigations at the RSPB.

“All the statistics prove that…two thirds of all convictions are against gamekeepers, so these are people legally employed to control vermin that they can control, but on some properties some of these gamekeepers are killing things that are fully protected,” he adds.

The charity believes licensing game estates would solve the problem, but this is disputed by the Countryside Alliance.

In a statement, the non-profit organization said: “Any incident of persecution of raptors is completely reprehensible, with penalties already including a prison sentence accompanied by an unlimited fine. »

In Spain, the relocation project in Extremadura has so far seen three pairs mating which gave birth to two surviving chicks.

With more marked red kites expected to reach sexual maturity next year, it is hoped these numbers will multiply.

“There are still large areas of southern Spain where the red kite was common thirty years ago and where it is now almost extinct,” explains Mr Godino.

“So the next step is to figure out how to apply this experience to other regions of Spain.”