THE CHALLENGE OF PROTECTING DISPERSANTS OF A SPECIES WITH LARGE HOME RANGES, THE ANDEAN CONDOR

GUIDO, JORGELINA; ALACÓN PAE; LAMBERTUCCI SERGIO A

Puerto Iguazú

Congreso; Ornithological Congress of the Americas; 2017

RAO. FOA, CBO

The establishment of protected areas (PA) are among the main strategies for theconservation of biodiversity. However, often these PA are inefficient for species withlarge home ranges (particularly for dispersing individuals), since they protect a smallproportion of the area they use. To conserve a species, daily activities and key moments in their life history must be considered. Even for the same species, space use may differdepending on age. We studied immature Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) space use ingeneral and then we distinguished between different behaviors (foraging, flying andresting), to analyze how they overlap with PA.We tagged 21 immature individuals withsatellitetransmitters in the Argentine Patagonia. We analyzed the overlap of eachbehavior with the existing PA inside their home range. The 63.42% of the immatureAndean condors? locations were in unprotected areas, 14.12% inside PA with effectiveprotection (IUCN categories I-III), 8.44% in categories with lower protection (IV-VI) and14.02% inside Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO). This pattern is consistent betweenbehaviors. Although biosphere reserves improve the arid zones (ecotono and steppe)used by condors, that areas have a low representation of PA with adequate controls andmanagement. The lack of protection could be a threat for the species and theenvironments they use since those unprotected areas are exposed to several threats,such as poisoning, or persecution. Our results highlight the importance of non-protectedprivate lands for the conservation of the species, and the need to consider arid zoneswhen designing PA.