The comparison of stochastic lambda (which incorporates both stochasticity and density dependence) with observed lambda showed that the recovery of the population in 2008–2009 (after the end of perturbations) was much faster than expected (Fig. 5). Food scarcity after the BSE crisis triggered a change in the foraging behaviour of vultures. Faced with reduced supply of carcasses, many individuals moved to exploit a garbage dump, another predictable but lower-quality food source, not exploited previously (own data, see Appendix S1 in Supporting Information). The presence of wind turbines on the main flight pathway of vultures to the landfill was the main cause of vulture mortality and was responsible for the observed population crash. Wind farms are increasingly identified as a source of mortality for large soaring bird species world-wide, and griffon vultures are BGJ398 one of the resident species most commonly affected by collisions with wind turbines in southern Europe (Barrios & Rodríguez 2004, 2007; Lekuona & Ursúa 2007; Lucas et al. 2008), in part because they have been shown to continue using foraging areas despite the presence of wind farms (Madders & Whitfield 2006). The rapid and strong negative demographic impact of vulture mortality is best explained by the sensitivity of the population growth rate to changes in adult survival, as expected for long-lived species (Carrete et al. 2005; Oro et al. 2008). On the contrary, the reduction in observed fecundity was unlikely to have a substantial effect on population growth of vultures (also suggested by elasticity analysis). The large drop in breeding pair numbers (2006–2008) is most probably explained by dispersal out of the study area after perturbations (see an example in Cam et al. 2004), reproductive skipping of adults (i.e. adults present in the area that do not breed because of the loss of a pair member) faced with a high mortality, a typical adaptation of long-lived species to unpredictable environments (Orzack & Tuljapurkar 1989; Pilastro, Tavecchia & Marin 2003) or a combination of both factors (dispersal and reproductive skipping), in addition to actual mortality. According to life-history theory, long-lived species faced with food scarcity reduce breeding effort before their survival rates decline, because that maximises their lifetime fitness (Aebischer & Wanless 1992; Saether & Bakke 2000). Dispersal probably took place towards the largest and closest colonies (see Le Gouar et al. 2008). Importantly, we found that both fecundity and local adult survival were more severely affected by wind turbine activity than by decreased food availability, and hence, the peak of the population crash occurred when the most problematic wind turbines were active (in 2007 and 2008).