The black vulture has a scattered distribution in the southern Palearctic, ranging from the Mediterranean to eastern Asia (BirdLife International, 2024). In Europe, the breeding population is highly concentrated in Spain, although small populations also persist in France, Greece, and Turkey (Keller et al., 2022). In Spain, it is concentrated in the southwestern quadrant of the peninsula, with three small populations outside this main core: the Balearic Islands, Sierra de la Demanda (Burgos), and the base of the Pyrenees in Catalonia (Purroy, 1997; Martí and Del Moral, 2003; Del Moral, 2017; Molina et al., 2022); the latter two resulting from reintroductions. In 2017, the Spanish population of black vultures in the last national census reached 2,548–3,148 breeding pairs, of which 148 were located in Madrid that year.

Within the Community of Madrid, the main colony is inside the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, but there is also a small breeding area in the southeastern edge, and several dispersed pairs along the Lozoya River valley outside the park’s influence. Within the national park, the population may be around 200 pairs, with over 95% in the upper Lozoya River valley and the rest in La Pedriza de Manzanares (González and Del Moral, 2024). This population has experienced significant growth since the first estimates in the 1970s, when the species was only sporadically recorded in the Lozoya River valley (Hiraldo, 1974) up to the present.