As a summary, the situation of the Red Kite in Spain is still very bad.
In fact, in the coming edition of the Spanish Red Data Book, its status is going to change from "Insufficiently known" to "Vulnerable/Endangered".
The species has still important strongholds in mid-mountain areas of the northern/western parts of Spain, but even there, population declines of ca. 50 % in just seven years have been detected in a sample of 60 10 x 10 Km squares in Castilla-León.
More importantly, this declining process may be affecting not only our resident population, but to wintering birds too (e.g. most of world population of the species, that stay for several months in Spain during winter).
As discussed in the attached papers (and others), poisoning/shooting related to illegal predator control by the hunting world, rodenticides, and disappearance of food sources in the form of "muladares" (places where remains of dead animals, farms, or meat processing factories are left) are the main conservation problems. The disappearance of food sources may be imparing recently , due to the "mad cows" problem.
Lead poisoning and pesticide abuse are known to be also problems at least locally, although more research would be necessary to fully understand their relative importance. In summary, a disappointing future for Spanish Red Kites...
An interesting problem we have in Spain is that the conservationist movement has not been worried at all about the species up to very recently, and even now, I think it is not receiving the necessary attention...there are so many wintering red kites here...nobody cares about such an abundant species, when Imperial Eagles are in the verge of extinction, or Bonnelli’s Eagles keep declining since 20 years ago...
