One hundred grey partridges, known as gnoli, and one hundred rock partridges, known in Georgia as kakabi, have been released into the wild in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. This was reported by the country's Protected Areas Agency. In the view of specialists, the park offers a suitable environment for these birds, which are characteristic of Georgia's natural landscape, to live and breed.
The birds were donated to the Gori municipality by the Karatu charitable foundation. The release of the partridges is part of a programme to restore and strengthen populations, under which similar operations have also been carried out in the protected areas of Algeti, Tbilisi, Mariamjvari, Kolkheti and Tana.
The rock partridge lives mainly in Eastern Georgia, preferring treeless rocky hills overgrown with derzhi, a shrub. The grey partridge inhabits fields and high-altitude plateaus in Georgia at elevations of up to 2,600 metres above sea level. Since 2016, the Wildlife Agency has been running a project to breed and restore native species. At the initiative of, and with financial support from, the family of Bidzina Ivanishvili, several thousand pheasants, grey partridges and rock partridges have already been released into the wild in Georgia.
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