Cogne ice climbing: mountain guides in defence of Bearded Vulture in Valnontey

The Valle d'Aosta mountain guides and in particular the members of the Cogne Alpine Guides are working together to protect the bearded vulture in Italy’s Valnontey, after last year’s hatching proved unsuccessful. This autumn these birds of prey chose a different area to nest and consequently the national park rangers and mountain guides joined forces to protect the birds’ privacy. "We must eliminate all disturbing elements, ie people who climb near the nest and walk on the plateau above and, in particular, helicopter flights. Since we cannot prohibit helicopter rescues, we need to get to the root of the problem and make sure climbers don’t need to be rescues in the first place by prohibiting access to certain ice climbs", explained Alessandro Crudo, president of the Cogne Mountain Guides.

In order to designate a protection area for the pair of bearded vultures, on 12, December representatives of the Gran Paradiso National Park and some mountain guides met in Cogne. These included park director Antonio Mingozzi, surveillance inspector Stefano Cerise, veterinarian Bruno Bassano and the head of the Cogne valley service Roberto Cristofori, as well as Cogne guides Alessandro Crudo, Alberto Silvestri and Marco Farina and Uvgam vice-president Mario Ogliengo.

Last year in France’s Vanoise National Park a 3km protection area was created to protect the pair of bearded vultures that had chosen to nest there. Aware of the importance of ice climbing for the Cogne economy, the Gran Paradiso Park managers and mountain guides have now extended the following ice climbing ban, which includes the entire Money summit plateau and the following icefalls below: L’ago di Money, Di fianco alla leggenda, Repentance super, La volpe e l’uva (via di dry tooling), Monday Money, Gusto di Scozia and Flash estivo. These are numbers 9, 10, 11, 11bis, 12, 13 and 14 in the ice climbing guidebook Effimeri barbagli by Matteo Giglio (Tipografia valdostana 2014).

"Ropes with warning signs will delimit the area, and the information regarding the ban will be shared with the media. I would like to point out that the mountain guides will cooperate with the Park's surveillance body, which will constantly monitor the area. Those who ignore the ban will face an administrative sanction and have their climbing gear confiscated, while those caught disturbing the nest will face criminal proceedings. This is no joke, it’s a serious matter." concluded Alessandro Crudo.

Info: www.guidealpine.it e www.guidealpinecogne.it