The publication aims to highlight the importance of this species and offer recommendations for making human activities compatible with its presence in the environment.

The Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment, through the Species Protection Service of the Directorate General for the Natural Environment and Forest Management, has published, with the collaboration of SEO/BirdLife and within the framework of the project ‘Actions for the Recovery of Wild Species’, a new issue of the collection ‘Quaderns de Natura’. In this case, the publication is dedicated to the good practices of rural activities for birds of prey (Bones pràctiques d’activitats rurals per a aus rapinyaires).

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Good practices in rural activities for birds of prey

Nowadays, owners and managers of rural properties are looking for new formulas for the maintenance and even the restoration of natural values compatible with their farms. In addition, there are infrastructures and other activities in the rural and natural environment that also have an impact, which can be positive or negative, on wildlife, depending on their design. For this reason, this guidance manual was created with the intention of providing tools and specific measures to make human activities in the natural environment compatible with the community of birds of prey and other fauna that accompany them.

Through this new issue, the Directorate General for the Natural Environment and Forest Management also wishes to emphasise that a healthy community of birds of prey allows the existence of a natural system in balance, as it regulates the density of medium predators which, when abundant, can cause significant social and economic impacts. In this sense, the importance of birds of prey for society is essentially related to three aspects: the cleanliness of the countryside, preventing the spread of diseases, the control of rodent, insect and wood pigeon plagues and, lastly, the economic value provided by ornithological tourism in the Balearic Islands.

The participants in the two annual monitoring sessions of the Plan for the Recovery and Conservation of Diurnal Birds of Prey in the Balearic Islands (Pla Terrasse), held on 24 November 2022 and 10 November 2023, contributed to the preparation of the publication. The new ‘Quadern de Natura’ can be downloaded from the website of the Species Protection Service.