Threats to Vultures & Vulture Conservation

[Flutterby]

[RogerFraser]

Catastrophic breaking news: 537 vultures found poisoned in dark day for Botswana conservation

https://africageographic.com/blog/catas ... Sy2Pv2DUXQ

Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) has announced today that they have recently identified a poisoning site with 537 dead vultures (comprising 5 species) and two tawny eagles.

The site of the mass poisoning was identified as Wildlife Management Area CT 1 in the Central District. This former trophy hunting area is close to the Botwana and Zimbabwe border, near Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Three poached elephant carcasses were laced with poison, which led to the vulture deaths.

The 537 dead vultures comprised 468 white-backed vultures, 28 hooded vultures, 17 white-headed vultures, 14 lappet-faced vultures and 10 Cape vultures. The DWNP law enforcement team attending the scene is working around the clock to decontaminate the area, and sampling of carcasses and the environment was done for further laboratory analysis. Members of the public in the vicinity of CT1 have been requested to report any further wildlife mortalities in their area, and to report any suspicious activities which may suggest environmental poisoning to the nearest wildlife office or the police.

Populations of white-backed, white-headed and hooded vultures are critically endangered according to the IUCN Red List, which means that they have an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Lappet-faced and Cape vultures are classified as endangered, which means that they are in danger of extinction through all or a significant portion of their ranges. Vultures face many threats to their ongoing survival, including mass poisoning incidents such as this, habitat and nesting site loss, collisions with power lines and pylons and poaching for the traditional medicine trade.

Compounding the loss to already threatened vulture populations is that this is the breeding season, and so many of the adult victims in this mass poisoning incident would have eggs or chicks, which will in all likelihood die.

Vultures provide an invaluable ‘clean-up’ service to the ecosystem, due to their unique digestive ability, and without them the spread of disease from rotting carcasses would be rife. Further reading about vultures: Why the World Needs Vultures.

[Alf]

Clowns

[Lisbeth]

WHY???

Ignorance is a major obstacle to progress in Africa. The Governments must do something about the education, especially in the poor rural districts, but not only

The vultures are so very important to the ecosystem and survival of the species all the way up to the humans.

the public is encouraged to desist from engaging in such illegal acts

If they think of stopping it this way, they are far off the right direction

[Peter Betts]

They shouldnt be living amongst Wild Life !!!

[Klipspringer]

https://www.hawk-conservancy.org/2019/0 ... rL0iVi766I

Vulture populations to be extinct sooner following recent poisonings – poachers’ poisoning attack kills over 500 critically endangered vultures


June has proved to be a devastating month for the team at Hawk Conservancy Trust, near Andover, as they learned of more than 500 vultures killed in less than a month. More worrying now is the real concern that the Trust’s previous scientific predictions of vulture extinction are highly likely to occur earlier than calculated due to the continuing actions of poachers.

The Hawk Conservancy Trust, which operates international research and conservation projects for many bird of prey species, has learnt of four poisoning attacks in Africa since 7th June – the worst being southeast of Chobe National Park, Botswana. Three elephants that had been killed for their ivory were laced with poison and a staggering 537 vultures who fed on the elephant carcasses died. Although the site is still being assessed, early accounts show that all vulture species were affected with the worst hit being the White-backed Vulture.

In a separate incident last week, 27 vultures were found dead in poison-related incidents by a local landowner in Zululand, northern KwaZulu-Natal. Here 23 African White-backed Vultures, three Lappet-faced Vultures and one White-headed Vulture were killed, all of which are listed as endangered or critically endangered. The Trust believes that the White-headed Vulture lost was the last one known to be in Zululand, very likely making this species now extinct in this area.

Dr Campbell Murn, Head of Conservation and Research at the Trust and African Project Officer Andre Botha (also Vultures for Africa Project Officer at Endangered Wildlife Trust) have committed themselves tirelessly to combat the effects of vulture poisoning in Africa. Their work monitoring vulture populations in southern Africa over the last decade means that they have come to know some of these birds individually. So the attacks are even more devastating, as Andre tells us: “News of this poisoning in Zululand was particularly upsetting for me as one of the Lappet-faced Vultures that was killed was one that I fitted a wing-tag to in 2015 and have been monitoring closely ever since. Only last month I received a photo of this bird looking healthy and just a year away from reaching maturity with the promise of finding a mate to breed with – all which would have helped in the fight to keep this vital species in existence.”

Vultures are key species in ecosystems where they occur and are the ‘clean-up crew’. They consume more dead animals than other scavengers and play a major role in nutrient recycling. What’s more, they have an important role in minimising diseases that impact local wildlife and human communities due to their speed at cleaning carcasses.

Explaining the reasons why vultures are targeted Dr Murn said: “The poachers lace the elephant carcasses with poison to deliberately wipe out the vultures, because whilst circling overhead, they are a visible signal to the authorities that a poaching crime has been committed. Another reason why vultures are targeted is for witchcraft and the collection of vulture body parts for belief-use purposes.”

“The critical fact here is that neither elephants nor vultures in Africa can sustain these losses. My research published in 2017 assessed the risk to critically endangered vultures from poisoning from elephant poaching and predicted that continued poisoning would cause large population declines of between fifty and one-hundred percent in almost all cases. In more than one scenario, the average time to extinction was estimated to be only 50-60 years. Two years on from this research and the reality is much worse – we are now at crisis point and seeing localised vulture extinction far sooner than expected.”

Hearteningly, the same research by Dr Murn also showed that where field staff are trained and equipped to neutralise poisoned carcasses and limit poison-related mortalities, the probability of local populations going extinct is reduced significantly. These important research results underpin the Hawk Conservancy Trust’s work of providing Poison Response training and kits to field staff in southern Africa, along with Endangered Wildlife Trust and Reading University.

This poison response initiative has been in place since 2016 and gives hope to limiting the catastrophic impact of vulture poisoning, yet there is more to do. With limited support and resources, the poison-response skills have yet to reach all the key strongholds for African vultures. It is vital to equip the field staff rapidly with the skills and tools they need in order to provide any chance of maintaining any vulture populations and avoiding total catastrophe – the extinction of these birds.

There has never been more of a need to act than now. With the support of the British public, so well known for their love of wildlife and the natural world, there is hope that the effects of vulture poison will be limited by increased poison response activity. For those who would like to support or know more please visit https://www.hawk-conservancy.org/prk/

[Lisbeth]

Conservation efforts will be in vain, if they do not manage to get in "contact" with the ones poisoning I do not think that they watch documentaries on conservation on TV. And even if they did..........................

[Flutterby]

On Wednesday 17 July, 119 vulture carcasses were found next to the carcass of a poached buffalo in the Kruger National Park. They were discovered in the Vlakteplaas section, reports Times Live.

Speaking to Times Live, SANParks spokesperson Ike Phaahla said rangers believed the carcasses to be approximately one week old. It was found that the poachers had cut out the meat from the buffalo after killing it and laced it with poison, which killed the vultures.

Phaahla continued by saying that poachers poison carcasses to ‘conceal their criminality to give themselves enough time to escape,’ reports Times Live.

With the sheer size of the park (it covers 2 million hectares) vultures play an important roll in alerting rangers to carcasses. To monitor every inch of the park permanently is practically an impossible task.

Phaahla stated that there were 117 white-backed vultures, 1 hooded vulture and 1 white-headed vulture. Two of the carcasses are being investigated to identify the poison that was used.

https://www.getaway.co.za/travel-news/m ... Y4w0NT4v2M

[Lisbeth]

[Mel]