The negative effect of certain leisure activities during the nesting period of the eagles

One time finalized the annual monitoring of the Catalan population of Bonelli's eagle that makes the Equip d'Estudi de l'Àliga Perdiguera, can be concluded that the nesting season of 2006 has not been specially good. This fact has been able to state again in certain population nuclei of the provinces of Tarragona and Barcelona where the last year the reproductive success also was enough low.

It is worrisome that many of the pairs that the last years raised with regularity have failed two followed years or that, in the best one of the cases, a chicken has solely been born. In some territories, the cause has been the disappearance of some of the ancestors during the reproductive period, the presence of sexually immature animals or the existence of annoyances near their nests. In this last case, it is possible to emphasize that there are territories where the increase of the human frequentation and the proliferation of certain activities of leisure are being the causes of these reproductive failures year after year.

It is precise to remember that a repeated human presence or the existence of certain activities, mainly in points located over where the eagles have their nests, can cause important annoyances that can get to make fail the nidification. In the last years very remarcables efforts have been made to solve the problems derived from the scaling but, at the moment, the practice of sports made with different types from flying apparatuses or the increase of tracks and ways near the breeding areas are the main causes of the nesting failures .

It is essential that the administrations responsible for the conservation of the Bonelli's eagle and those that manage the natural spaces where they breeds apply the necessary measures to solve this problems. Some of these measures are:

- to restrict the access or the practice of certain activities in the most fragile zones during the breeding season of the eagles (January - June),

- to facilitate alternative itineraries that have a smaller incidence on the natural values of the zone, and

- to make campaigns of sensibilización directly addressed to the groups that can cause this kind of problems.