Wildlife movement hopes to reintroduce bears, vultures to Portugal

The Rewilding movement is proposing to reintroduce animals such as bear and vulture back into an area of 100,000 hectares in Portugal, an official from a local environmental group told the Portuguese News Agency Lusa.
"The initiative is focused on the great Iberian west, an area of cork, holm and oak forests, to the north of the meso-Iberian mountain range,"said Pedro Prata, the coordinator of environmental association Transumancia e Natureza, which is the local representative of the Rewilding Europe project.
The proposed reintroduction area, which also covers part of Spain, is one of the six areas across Europe targeted for so-called "rewilding".
The Rewilding movement began in the United States in the 1970s and focuses on returning unused agricultural land to its previous wild state, including introduction of wildlife that once roamed the area.
Prata said that preparing the area for reintroduction of predator and scavenger species, such as bears and vultures, required increasing stocks of wild herbivores such as deer and mountain goats.
The movement is a private initiative and the projects in Spain and Portugal have yet to be implemented as Rewilding Europe has yet to receive a response from local authorities responsible for the land.