Threats to Vultures & Vulture Conservation

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Re: Threats to Vultures

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Yes, it does not seem to very appreciated by a whole lot of the local populations. Ignorance once again :evil:


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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These are the two reasons why vultures are dying in KZN
KWAZULU-NATAL / 17 SEPTEMBER 2019, 2:30PM / THOBEKA NGEMA

Durban - Vultures are critically endangered and their population is declining owing to human activity.

There are two types of vultures found in Ukhahlamba, the Cape Vulture and the Bearded Vulture.

Central Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park Community Conservation Officer Sinenhlanhla Mhlongo said Intabamhlophe Mountain is a home and breeding site of Cape vultures and partially managed by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife because of vulture sites. Bearded vultures occur mainly on Giants side and they feed mostly on bones and marrows of dead animals.

Vultures controlled the spread of diseases to domestic animals, wildlife and humans and they make the environment free from the odour from dead animals.

Their bodies are also resistant to diseases.

In June, 20 vultures were found dead from suspected poisoning in two separate incidents.

Two of the reasons behind the decline of the vulture population are:

1. Vulture Poisoning

Some people poison carcasses with an intention of killing carnivores but vultures become victims because they feed on the same animals.

“Poisoning of vultures do not have a negative impact on vultures only but also on humans. Some people sell poisoned vulture parts for muthi purposes which results in putting people’s health at risk. There are incidents where patients that were treated traditionally with poisoned parts of vulture died because of poisoned medicine. Treating patients with poisoned parts of vultures can result in unnecessary fatalities and arrests,” Mhlongo said.

2. Power Lines

“Power lines also poses a threat to vulture population due to collisions that results to the death of vultures since power lines are not visible to the birds,” she said.

She said vultures are protected by law because they are a threatened species. For one to be in a possession of a vulture part needs to apply for a permit through Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.

Daily News

https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/kw ... n-33120379


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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Some people poison carcasses with an intention of killing carnivores
This has no sense 0-


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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-O- They do poison carcasses to kill animals that attack their stock?


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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It's still 0- ;-)


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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THE EASE OF OBTAINING DEADLY PESTICIDES – A Zambian snap-assessment

Image

André Botha, Manager, EWT Vultures for Africa | AndreB@ewt.org.za

A two-week field trip to Zambia during August 2019 provided the EWT’s Vultures for Africa Programme an opportunity to conduct the first Wildlife Poisoning Response Training workshop in the North Luangwa National Park to train rangers and other staff of the Park to effectively identify and respond to wildlife poisoning incidents when they happen in this part of the Luangwa Valley. The area has been identified as a wildlife poisoning hotspot following a number of wildlife poisoning events since 2013. The largest of these events happened when a poached elephant carcass was poisoned and killed 302 vultures in October 2013. The workshop also provided an opportunity to initiate the training of three BirdWatch Zambia staff members Chaona Phiri, Mary Malasa and Kelvin Mkandawire as facilitators of possible future workshops in Zambia as part of the EWT-Hawk Conservancy-University of Reading partnership’s project supported by the US-FWS.

In the week preceding the training at North Luangwa, BirdWatch staff decided to do an assessment of the availability and accessibility of the range of pesticides commonly used in wildlife poisoning on the streets of Lusaka. A few hours of shopping confirmed that there are many dealers stocking these products and that purchasing any product is as simple as asking for it and handing over the cash. Dealers seldom bothered to enquire what the pesticides were being purchased for and no record was kept of the transactions that were concluded. Within no time, they were able to purchase substantial quantities of highly toxic chemicals such as Carbofuran (one of the most widely used pesticides in wildlife poisoning globally), Monocrotophos and Endosulfan (both banned in South Africa since the early 2010s) at very affordable prices. One kilogramme of Carbofuran was bought for a mere ZMW76,00 or R88,00.

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Business at the so-called “Agro-shops or dealers” is brisk and shoppers have a range of choices in terms of products and suppliers. This is not uncommon in most of the towns we passed on our route.

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The range of products which BirdWatch staff were able to purchase in a couple of hours of shopping in downtown Lusaka with prices indicated in Zambian Kwacha. The 1 kilogramme pack of Carbofuran on the left is highly toxic and such a quantity can kill thousands of animals.

We were able to repeat this assessment in the eastern Zambian city of Chipata when travelling back from North Luangwa National Park a few days after training. It was hardly surprising that we were able to acquire a similar range of substances from various suppliers at affordable prices, again with little or no questions asked about our intended use thereof. Substances easily acquired included Chlorpyrifos, another pesticide banned in South Africa in 2011. It was noticeable that people of varying ages, including children, were able to walk into a store, ask for and purchase a range of chemicals and veterinary medicines in Chipata without much scrutiny or any record-keeping processes as required by law being followed. It is hardly surprising that these substances are often used in the killing of wildlife.

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We counted a total of 7 dealers in agro-chemicals and other pesticides along this road in the town of Nyimba, eastern Zambiia.

From Chipata we travelled to the Munyamadzi Game Reserve passing villages such as Chiabala and Chilye where we noticed small groups of young males selling large quantities of roasted rodents on sticks to passing travellers. This reminded me of a conversation during a training workshop in nearby Malawi the year before when one of the rangers shared the fact that the preferred method of killing rodents in the area was the use of Aldicarb (Temik) which killed large numbers of these animals during outbreaks. Another “advantage” associated with the use of this highly toxic pesticide was that the rodents died at or near the poisoned baits, something which does not occur with commercially available rodenticides that normally take longer to kill animals that consume them and whose victims are seldom found near where the baits have placed. The use of Aldicarb therefor makes animals killed by this means easier to collect, cook and sell to consumers as a source of protein. Consumers of animals killed in this manner seem to be oblivious to the potential risk of this practice.

The situation in Zambia is certainly not unique and we have encountered similar circumstances in most SADC and east African countries over the last few years where, even if adequate legislation and guidelines with regard to the use of highly toxic pesticides are in place, enforcement of laws and control of these substances are often poor or non-existent. This also applies to South Africa where pesticides such as Aldicarb (Temik) are the most widely used substances in the illegal poisoning of wildlife and domestic animals and can be easily obtained at minimal cost and effort in many informal markets across the country, despite being withdrawn from formal trade in 2011 and being banned since 2014.

Image
Young men selling roasted rodents to passers-by along the main road between Chipata and Lusaka. No one seems too concerned to enquire about the methods used to catch and kill such large numbers of these animals.


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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:evil: :evil: :evil:


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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https://undark.org/2019/10/30/tradition ... -vultures/

Traditional Medicine Threatens South Africa’s Vultures
REPUBLISH
Demand in Asia often takes the blame for Africa’s wildlife crisis, but homegrown “belief use” poses its own threat.

BY CATHLEEN O'GRADY
10.30.2019

ON A CLEAR, crisp winter night on Somkhanda Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a truck hurtles down a dirt road. In the back, heaps of trash bags stuffed with white-backed vulture corpses emit the stink of vomit and rotting meat. Two surviving vultures crouch on the laps of rangers, occasionally making pitiful mewlings.

All the vultures they picked up were poisoned, with the two survivors rushed to veterinary care. According to the reserve’s manager, Meiring Prinsloo, local villagers who collectively own the reserve said the vultures were targeted for use in traditional medicine.

It’s not just vultures. The wildlife trade for traditional medicine — called “belief use” — “has a bigger impact than the ivory trade, and the rhino trade, and the lion trade,” says Vivienne Williams, an ethnobotanist and ethnozoologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Williams has found more than 600 plant species traded for traditional medicine, with tons of material harvested annually, 82 species threatened with local extinction, and another hundred “of conservation concern.”

The threat that belief use poses to endangered African wildlife is more commonly associated with the use of rhino horn in Vietnamese and Chinese traditional medicine. But African traditional medicine, called muthi in many parts of Southern Africa, poses a substantial conservation threat of its own.

There’s a vast range of animals in the trade, too: Williams and her colleagues have found sales of more than 147 species of vertebrates, including 17 threatened species, for sale in a major medicine market in Johannesburg.

“There are more individual animals in this muthi trade than there are elephants killed,” says Williams. The ivory trade is more intense, with a limited number of people involved and higher value, she adds, “but this pan-African trade in traditional medicine is far more widespread, and I think people underestimate the impact that it’s probably having.”

As for vultures like those poisoned at Somkhanda Game Reserve, belief use is one of the most serious threats to endangered and critically endangered species. The continent’s vulture populations are collapsing rapidly, and belief use accounts for nearly 30 percent of the vulture deaths recorded in 26 countries between 1961 and 2014.

This local impact is often overlooked, “because [of] this other thinking that maybe China is the problem or Vietnam is the problem,” says Nolwazi Mbongwa, an ethnobotanist and traditional healer — or sangoma. She says analyzing the global issue is premature “when we haven’t even understood that our own dynamic in South Africa is an issue.”

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE, which encompasses both herbalism and spiritual practices such as divination, plays an important role in the lives of many South Africans. But the wide range of cultures within South Africa means that different animal and plant substances can be used in different ways.

“African culture is not a homogeneous lump,” says Nokulinda Mkhize, a South African sangoma. Which treatments are used, and how they are used, depends on the region, the culture, and the individual healer. Universal ethics and guidelines underlie traditional medicine, says Mkhize, but “there is a lot of room for negotiation and a lot of room for flexibility in terms of how we articulate our practices.” And some sangomas prefer not to use animal products at all, says Mbongwa.

Image
Animal skins hang for sale at the Friday traditional medicine market in downtown Johannesburg. Researchers have found that more than 147 species of vertebrates, including 17 threatened species, are sold at this market. Visual: Hoberman Collection / Universal Images Group via Getty

Still, there are commonalities. In both West Africa and Southern Africa, for instance, vultures are considered valuable because of their excellent eyesight, thought to bring foresight and good luck. According to Mbongwa, vulture brains and heads may be incinerated and inhaled, or included in a mixture that is kept under a client’s pillow. This follows the “Doctrine of Signatures,” the principle by which the qualities of an animal or plant dictate what they can be used for. “If it’s red, it’s used for blood; if it looks like a brain, it’s used for your brain,” says Williams, and “if it’s a big strong animal, it’s used for strength.”

Some people in South Africa make use of both biomedicine and traditional medicine complementarily, just as North Americans might choose to visit a doctor, a nutritionist, a priest, and a psychiatrist. Thabile Nawe, a history graduate student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal whose research focuses on the clients of traditional healers, says that personal preference, financial concerns, and convenience may all play a role.

Apartheid-era legislation forced people of color into dislocated “townships” located outside of major cities, and so healers located within these communities may be easier to reach than hospitals, Nawe says. Government clinics provide free or reduced-price health care but are often overcrowded and underfunded, while private health care is expensive.

“I use both,” says Nawe — biomedicine for physical ailments, and traditional medicine for spiritual and psychological guidance. Explaining why she continues to use traditional medicine, she says, “I really do feel that it’s something that’s part of who we are.”

BACK ON THE TRUCK at Somkhanda, the game reserve staff ease the two surviving vultures into crates, ready to face the five-hour drive to a rescue sanctuary. The rangers keep their hands and faces covered to avoid any contact with traces of the poison — assumed to be carbamate, a class of agricultural pesticides that are toxic not just to vultures, but to people.

The dead vultures likely have significant chemical residues on their mouths and heads from eating the poisoned meat and it’s thought that “the heads are what’s most frequently used by people,” says Andre Botha, a program manager at the Endangered Wildlife Trust. The extent of the risk to healers and their clients is currently unknown, he adds. Safe sourcing is a concern within the healing community, says Mbongwa. “We are also as vulnerable,” she says, “as our patients are.”

Many traditional healers try to work only with materials they personally source. “We are guided by very strict ethics in terms of who can hunt, when things can be hunted, how they must be hunted, and what offerings must be given,” says Mkhize.

But personal sourcing has grown increasingly difficult, particularly over the 20th century. Migrant labor has drawn people to cities and apartheid-era laws forcibly removed black communities from their land, divorcing the healers from their traditional ethics and forcing them to rely on a murky supply chain. The commodification of traditional medicine and the resulting competition, says Karen Flint, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, began to drive over-harvesting.

This history is inextricably bound to the current problem — and any potential solutions. Conservation often operates from the racist premise that “black people don’t care about nature,” says Mkhize. But the damage wrought by traditional medicine, she says, is a drop in the ocean compared to the global environmental damage caused by agriculture and industrialization. “Our entire practice is premised on protecting nature, because we need nature,” says Mkhize. “We cannot be izangoma” — the isiZulu language plural of sangoma — “if we have nothing left.”

Considering goals of conservationists and healers, “these two worlds are able to work hand in hand,” says Mbongwa. But top-down solutions developed by conservationists and researchers have not helped, she argues. She hopes a more grassroots approach that focuses on the conservation ethics present in traditional belief systems, invites people’s expertise, and encourages frontrunners to adopt new practices could be more successful.

“You build the bridge until everybody can walk on it,” she says.

Poverty obstructs conservation efforts, she adds. There’s not only a financial incentive to hunt and sell vulture parts, but the use of vulture heads is also linked to poverty. “It’s a huge motivator in the use of vultures,” Mbongwa says — because people think it means good luck, easy money, and a higher chance of getting out of poverty.

TODAY, THE two survivors of Somkhanda’s poisoning incident are recovering, ready to be released in November. But the 17 vultures that didn’t make it are just a fraction of the 764 white-backed vultures killed in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia this year.

Distributed across much of west, east, and southern Africa, white-backed vultures face a range of threats including habitat loss, electrocution on poorly-designed power lines, and poisoning — due to belief use, for food, as collateral damage when the vultures feed on other poisoned animals, and more — and are expected to suffer population declines of approximately 90 percent over three generations. In West Africa, where vultures are commonly hunted for food and belief use, declines of white-backed vultures have been higher than 90 percent, and the species has largely disappeared from Nigeria, northern Cameroon, and most of Ghana and Niger.

Motive can be difficult to determine, says Botha. If a vulture feeds on a poisoned elephant carcass, for instance, it suggests that poachers intended to keep the vultures out of the sky so they wouldn’t draw attention to the illegal kill. If the carcass is bait, like an impala, it could be intended for a livestock predator, or for vultures. Or there may be multiple motives in a single poisoning.

While it may be difficult to determine motive, belief use — established based on dead vultures found without heads, or for sale at traditional medicine markets — still accounted for 29 percent of the recorded vulture deaths across 26 African countries between 1961 and 2014, according to a 2015 paper in Conservation Letters. The African Wildlife Poison Database has a lower estimate, attributing approximately 12 percent of deaths across 17 countries between 1973 and 2015 — although the reasons for a further 27 percent of deaths are categorized as “unknown” in the database.

In South Africa, declines of white-backed vultures and white-headed vultures are rapid enough that a 2013 paper in Vulture News projected local extinction as early as 2024 — or 2040 in a best-case scenario — based on the extent of vulture parts found in a survey of traditional medicine markets. Because of their rapid decline and slow breeding rates, white-backed vultures are listed as critically endangered by the IUCN — the same threat level as the black rhino, and a considerably higher threat level than the white rhino. Of eight vulture species common across Africa, four are critically endangered, three endangered, and one is considered near threatened.

Africa’s vulture crisis threatens devastating effects in fragile ecosystems, as well as risks to human health. Vultures’ highly adapted digestive systems are the end of the line for diseases such as anthrax and tuberculosis; without them, there is a higher risk of disease transmission from carcasses.

The loss of these and other species that are important to traditional medicine would mean “losing part of my culture, part of my identity,” says Mbongwa. “It would be a loss of self.”

Cathleen O’Grady is a South African science writer based in Scotland. Her work on the use and abuse of science in societal decision-making has appeared in Hakai, The Guardian, FiveThirtyEight and Ars Technica.


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Re: Threats to Vultures

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We complain about Traditional Chinese medicine while our own Muti is just as bad!! :evil: :evil:


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:evil:


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