La Cuniacha – the wild animal park in Piedrafita – yesterday announced that they will be opening a vulture feeding station next spring. This is fantastic news and will give Hike Pyrenees guests even more opportunities to see Lammergeier, griffon vultures, egyptian vultures and other birds of prey.

Aragon has 50 vulture feeding stations but this will be the first in this area. I’ve visited the station in the Garganta de Escuain (which is the other side of the Ordesa National Park) several times and always get superb views of Lammergeiers. The station attracts all types of birds of prey and one time I counted 6 different types of raptor in view at the same time!

Griffon Vulture

The feeding station is going to be alongside the existing park – I imagine in the meadows above the woods. This is where our popular Ibon de Piedrafita walk passes through and this area is already a great place to see birds with short toed eagles, griffons, egyptian vultures and kite regular sightings on this walk.

Feeding stations are now necessary in the Pyrenees due to the reduced number of livestock that are grazed in the alpine pastures. A park ranger in Escuain told me that 15 years ago 11 farmers brought cattle up to the pastures there in summer but now only 2 do so. Less animals mean not so many die and consequently less food for the vultures. The Escuain station has certainly been a success and Lammergeier are really quite common in that area now – and not just right at the station but any hike in the surrounding 20 kilometres or so.

European Lynx

La Cuniacha animal park is a great facility and concentrates on animals that at some time lived in the Pyrenees. It has European bison, lynx, wolves, reindeer and lots of other types of goats and deers. It takes around 2 hours to wander around the park and you can walk through the enclosures of most of the animals (not the wolves!). It’s very well done and the animals have plenty of space to roam. They are part of the Prezwalski horse breeding program and over the last few years have had two sets of lynx cubs which were really cute when small. Take a look at the video of the lynx cubs here.

For more information about La Cuniacha visit their website.

La Cuniacha is within easy reach of any of our walking holidays in the Valle de Tena.