Threats to Vultures & Vulture Conservation

[Lisbeth]

It is terrible!!

[Lisbeth]

Lift-off for first African vulture safe zones

BY FRED KOCKOTT, TONY CARNIE ON 28 NOVEMBER 2019

- Africa’s vulture populations face the prospect of collapsing in much the same way as vulture species in Asia, experts warn, having already declined by an average 62 percent over the past three decades.

- Key threats include poisoning by ranchers and poachers and for belief-based use, as well as accidental drowning in farm water reservoirs and ingestion of lead ammunition.

- To address the threats, managers of conservation areas and private game reserves in South Africa have agreed to create “vulture safe zones” that will do away with these practices to provide safe havens for existing vulture populations.

- Conservationists say it’s also important for managers in South Africa to work with their counterparts in neighboring countries that are part of the vultures’ range, and to tackle the trade in vulture parts used in traditional medicine practices.

Howick, SOUTH AFRICA – The first of at least five new “vulture safe zones” in Southern Africa are about to take off as private landowners and other partners join the battle to save Africa’s imperilled carrion clean-up birds.

Africa’s vulture populations have declined by an average of 62 percent over the last three decades – with seven species crashing by 80 percent – mirroring the dramatic collapse of several Asian species.

These were among findings of recent research presented by leading animal scientist Brent Coverdale at the Conservation Symposium, one of South Africa’s biggest annual gatherings of conservationists, environmental scientists and wildlife experts.

“We need to think globally and act locally,” Coverdale told attendees at the event, held this year in the town of Howick from Nov. 4-8.

“We all know of the Asian vulture crisis, where we had vulture declines of 90-95 percent in the early 1990s. It’s something that drives us. We do not want to be sitting in the same boat, where one day people will ask, so what were we doing when the crisis was happening?”


Gyps genus at India’s Soheldev Wildlife Sanctuary. Image by Rajat Bhargava.

Into the 1980s, there were large numbers of vultures across India and southern Asia. They played a particularly important role in the ecosystem, consuming the remains of the millions of cows in carcass dumps; India has 500 million cows raised for milk, but not eaten by the majority Hindu population. In the early 1990s, vultures started dropping dead. Hundreds of thousands died before scientists identified a culprit: diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used by vets. Vultures feeding on carcasses containing the drug died swiftly of kidney failure. Conservation India says around 40 million vultures perished.

Coverdale, who works for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, a South African government conservation body, stressed the vital roles that vultures play in ecosystems. By swiftly stripping the flesh from dead animals, they reduce the spread of disease as well as the number of animals scavenging at rotting carcasses.

“We really can’t afford to lose them. In nine minutes they can clean up an entire carcass,” Coverdale said.

There are several reasons for the decline of African vultures, but deliberate or accidental poisoning is the biggest peril.

Gareth Tate, the Birds of Prey Programme manager for the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), says poison accounts for about 60 percent of vulture deaths in the Southern Africa region.

Some poisoned bait is laid by livestock owners to kill predators, like jackals. Vultures feeding off the carcasses subsequently die, often in significant numbers. Others are poisoned deliberately to harvest body parts for making muthi, traditional medicine potions.

In one of the worst mass-poisoning cases on record, at least 540 vultures were killed near Botswana’s Chobe National Park earlier this year after feeding on elephant carcasses spiked with a potent poison by wildlife poachers, in an apparent effort to conceal illegal activities from rangers.

In this case, the carcasses were not removed for two to three weeks, resulting in an extended cycle of death as more vultures and other scavengers arrived to feast.


A dead vulture next to a dead elephant in southern Mozambique. The carcass had been laced with toxic farm poisons. Image courtesy Andre Botha

Cape vulture: by stripping the flesh from dead animals, vultures reduce the spread of disease as well as the number of animals scavenging at rotting carcasses.

Vultures are also poisoned deliberately for the traditional medicine trade. The misconception that these carrion birds have psychic powers, or can ‘see into the future’ has led to a demand for vulture’s heads and other body parts.

Andre Botha, EWT’s Vultures for Africa Programme manager, said that while it was hard to quantify the numbers of vultures killed for belief-based use, recent studies estimated that direct persecution of vultures either for muthi or food was about 29 percent of all vultures killed in Africa.

While Botha was not at this year’s symposium, he said the belief-based use of vultures was a significant and growing threat to the continent’s vultures”. This, he said, needed to be openly discussed “with the same degree of vigour as is the misconceptions associated with the use of rhino horn” in Asia.

“It is an inconvenient truth that must be addressed,” added Botha.

Accidental drownings in farm water reservoirs have also been reported, and research has flagged lead bullet fragments in animal carcasses as an increasing concern.

But BirdLife South Africa vulture project manager Linda van den Heever said many landowners and game ranch owners seemed resistant to halt the use of lead ammunition on their land, complaining that lead-free ammo is less effective and more expensive.

At the symposium, several researchers outlined the results of recent partnerships to arrest the growing decline of vultures in Southern Africa.

One initiative involves creating “vulture safe zones” — large areas where landowners commit to managing their land in ways that will provide safe havens for existing vulture populations.

According to EWT, the emphasis of the vulture safe zones will be to encourage positive action, “focusing less on prohibition and negative messaging, and more on sound environmental practices that could provide landowners with reputational and economic benefits.”

In support of the program, participating landowners have agreed to stop baiting carcasses with poison, and modify concrete water reservoirs to reduce the risk of accidental drowning.

The first such vulture safety zone, announced in September, is the Tswalu Kalahari Game Reserve in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, a massive 114,000-hectare (281,700-acre) private reserve owned by the wealthy Oppenheimer family of De Beers diamond fame.

Further south, in the arid Karoo region, private landowners and South African National Parks are establishing two other zones, one in the vicinity of Mokala National Park, approximately 70 kilometers (43 miles) south-southwest of the diamond-mining town of Kimberley, and a larger one that incorporates the Karoo, Camdeboo and Mountain Zebra national parks — around 96,000 hectares (237,200 acres).

In Mpumalanga province, the focus will be on protecting important breeding clusters of critically endangered white-backed (Gyps africanus) and hooded vultures (Necrosyrtes monachus) along the Blyde and Olifants rivers, while there are plans for a fifth safe zone in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The safe zones will complement work already undertaken by Ezemvelo and its partners in conserving vulture populations in the Zululand and Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg regions under the umbrella of Project Vulture, a multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Coverdale highlighted that vultures nesting in apparent safety in South Africa’s government-run wildlife parks flew well beyond the boundaries of protected areas while foraging — in some cases as far as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

It was thus vital that South African vulture conservation groups worked more closely with conservation agencies in neighboring countries to protect these birds.

He said it was equally important to find ways to combat the trade in vulture parts for traditional medicine.

Nomthandazo Sam Manqele, a researcher at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, presented preliminary findings from her study of vulture parts sold at two traditional medicine markets near Durban and Nongoma.

Of 100 muthi sellers interviewed, 71 said they used vulture parts.

As most vultures entering the trade have been killed with poisons, this places both users and traders at risk, Manqele said.

Coverdale said an intervention strategy had been developed to reduce this consumption and demand for vultures through an awareness-building campaign targeting consumers and current stakeholders in the trade.

And the good news, said Manqele, was that crows, which are common and not threatened, may provide a suitable alternative in some instances.

Citation

Ogada, D., Shaw, P., Beyers, R. L., Buij, R., Murn, C., Thiollay, J. M., … Sinclair, A. R. E. (2015). Another continental vulture crisis: Africa’s vultures collapsing toward extinction. Conservation Letters, 9(2), 89-97. doi:10.1111/conl.12182


Tony Carnie, a KwaZulu-Natal based freelance journalist, produced this story for Mongabay and Roving Reporters, a journalism training agency that focuses on environmental, social and justice issues. Fred Kockott is the agency’s founding director.

[Klipspringer]

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/alarm ... th-africa/

Alarm over mass vulture poisoning in South Africa
by Fred Kockott on 29 December 2019

Fifteen white-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) and a young lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos) have died after feeding on a poison-laced impala carcass in northern Zululand on 23 Dec — the fourth such incident in the province in 2019.
The heads and feet had been removed from 13 of the dead birds, their bodies concealed in thick bush: experts warn that deliberate poisoning of vultures for belief-based use is on the increase in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
More than 1,200 vultures were deliberately poisoned across Southern and Eastern Africa this year, according to the Endangered Wildlife Trust.



DURBAN, South Africa — Another mass vulture poisoning incident has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Soon after releasing two rehabilitated vultures, rescued from a different poisoning scene earlier this year, WildLife ACT was alerted to another incident on 23 Dec, on Rolling Valley Ranch, located between Pongola and Mkuze in the far north of the province.

“Arriving at a scene like this with everything so fresh, but too late to assist in saving any poisoned birds is heartbreaking. Losing one vulture is always a tragedy. Losing at least 16 birds at one feeding is a crisis,” said PJ Roberts, manager of Wildlife ACT’s Emergency Response Team.

Wildlife ACT works closely with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, local farmers and communities, and other conservation groups to protect three endangered vulture species in KwaZulu-Natal.

The first bird found, a white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus), hinted at Roberts’s worst fears: “It had a full crop (still containing undigested food), contorted feet and many dead flies were scattered around its remains — all clear signs of fast-acting poison.”

The team swept the area, but it took an aerial search to locate more victims. “We landed to find the devastating remains of multiple birds hidden at the base of the tree. Included in this discovery was the removed, yellow, wing tags of H065; a young lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos) tagged in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in October 2017 as a fledgling,” said Roberts.

“No more than 30m away, the morbid discovery of 13 processed and harvested white-backed vultures, with their heads and feet removed, were found very purposefully hidden in a thick bush,” added Roberts.


Wildlife ACT response team with the bodies of 13 white-backed vultures, poisoned for the traditional medicine trade. Image courtesy Wildlife ACT.

Nearby was the body of an impala — snared, killed, and laced with poison. The rangers burned all the contaminated carcasses to ash to remove the poison from the ecosystem.

It is the fourth vulture poisoning incident in northern Zululand this year, bringing the total recorded number of vultures harvested for body parts in this region alone to 53. The actual number of birds killed is believed to be much higher as many incidents are never detected.

The Endangered WildLife Trust’s (EWT) Vultures for Africa Programme manager, Andre Botha, said it was difficult to quantify how many vultures are deliberately poisoned for body parts.

According to records kept by EWT, more than 1,200 vultures have been deliberately poisoned in Southern and Eastern Africa this year. Culprits include poachers who poison the carcasses of elephant and other game in an apparent effort to conceal illegal activities from rangers. These poisonings are referred to as “sentinel poisonings”, as vultures circling over poached animals alert rangers to the killings.

Africa’s vulture populations have already declined by an average 62 percent over the past three decades — with seven species crashing by 80 percent. Experts recently warned that the continent’s vulture populations face the prospect of collapsing, in much the same way as vulture species did in Asia thirty years ago.

In the early 1990s, millions of Asian vultures died after eating the remains of cows in carcass dumps; India has 500 million cows raised for milk, but not eaten by the majority Hindu population. Scientists identified the culprit: diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used by vets. Vultures feeding on carcasses containing the drug died swiftly of kidney failure.

The reasons for the African vulture crisis are vastly different. They include habitat loss, ingestion of lead ammunition, collisions with power lines, accidental drownings in farm water reservoirs, and the use of poisoned bait by livestock owners to kill predators like jackals. Vultures feeding off the carcasses subsequently die, often in significant numbers.

But many more are poisoned deliberately to harvest body parts for belief-based use.

“The vultures are killed for their heads and feet and other parts,” said Chris Kelly, a species director at Wildlife ACT. “This is definitely the single biggest threat to diminishing vulture populations in this province,” said Kelly.

In many parts of Africa, vultures are believed to have psychic powers, including an ability to see into the future.

According to a fact sheet from EWT, the brains of the bird are dried, rolled and smoked as joints or simply burnt and the fumes inhaled. Users believe this improves their odds when they gamble on the lottery or place bets on sport. Students take it when preparing for exams. Other reported uses of vultures include consuming their eyes to improve eyesight, their beaks for protection, or their feet to heal fractured bones or make a person run faster.

In 2014, EWT estimated that 130,000 traders, hunters and traditional healers were operating in South Africa. This figure is believed to have increased, sparking calls from conservationists, environmental scientists and wildlife experts at this year’s Conservation Symposium for an awareness-building campaign to reduce this consumption and demand for vulture parts.

“Vultures provide critically important ecosystem services by cleaning up carcasses thus reducing the spread of dangerous diseases such as anthrax and rabies and resulting in highly significant economic and human health benefits,” said Brent Coverdale, an animal scientist for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife at the symposium. “We really can’t afford to lose them.”

As vultures are protected by law, it is illegal to possess or kill any of the six vulture species found in South Africa. Nevertheless, deliberate killings continue.

Roberts said the latest poisoning incident had been reported to local police.

“We are hoping this leads to an arrest,” said Roberts. “If the illegal harvest of these birds is not halted, then extinction may be just around the corner and the services that they provide within the ecosystem will be lost forever.”

As part of a bid to save vulture populations, managers of conservation areas and private game reserves in South Africa are collaborating to create safe havens for existing vulture populations.

— additional reporting, Mlu Mdletshe, Roving Reporters.

[Richprins]

[Klipspringer]

There are more vultures killed than rhinos And most of them for African traditional medicine but the world only blames Asia for the use of endangered species in traditional medicine.

Where is the awareness campaign? Where is the demand reduction strategy? Where is the vulture management plan?

[Richprins]

The powers that be use Muthi themselves...

[Lisbeth]

Where is the awareness campaign? Where is the demand reduction strategy? Where is the vulture management plan?

Excellent question! The vultures is one of the most important parts of the food chain, if not THE most important

Only private organisations seem to be worrying about this BIG problem and that is definitely not sufficient!

[Klipspringer]

More detail here

https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/afri ... m-39868131

Durban - Another mass vulture poisoning incident in northern KwaZulu-Natal has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers.
Soon after releasing two rehabilitated vultures, rescued from a different poisoning scene earlier this year, WildLife ACT was alerted to another incident on December 23 on Rolling Valley Ranch, located between Pongola and Mkuze in the far north of the province.


“Arriving at a scene like this with everything so fresh, but too late to assist in saving any poisoned birds is heartbreaking. Losing one vulture is always a tragedy. Losing at least 16 birds at one feeding is a crisis,” said PJ Roberts, manager of Wildlife ACT’s Emergency Response Team.

Wildlife ACT works closely with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, local farmers and communities, and other conservation groups to protect three endangered vulture species in KwaZulu-Natal.

The first bird found, a white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus), hinted at Roberts’s worst fears: “It had a full crop (still containing undigested food), contorted feet and many dead flies were scattered around its remains - all clear signs of fast-acting poison.”

The team swept the area, but it took an aerial search to locate more victims. “We landed to find the devastating remains of multiple birds hidden at the base of the tree. Included in this discovery was the removed yellow wing tags of H065; a young lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos) tagged in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in October 2017 as a fledgling,” said Roberts.

“No more than 30m away, the morbid discovery of 13 processed and harvested white-backed vultures, with their heads and feet removed, were found very purposefully hidden in thick bush,” added Roberts.

Nearby was the carcass of an impala - snared, killed and laced with poison. The rangers burned all the contaminated carcasses to ash to remove the poison from the ecosystem.

It is the fourth vulture poisoning incident in northern Zululand this year, bringing the total recorded number of vultures harvested for body parts in this region alone to 53. The actual number of birds killed is believed to be much higher as many incidents are never detected.

The Endangered WildLife Trust’s (EWT) Vultures for Africa programme manager, Andre Botha, said it was difficult to quantify how many vultures are deliberately poisoned for body parts.

According to records kept by EWT, more than 1200 vultures have been deliberately poisoned in Southern and East Africa this year. Culprits include poachers who poison the carcasses of elephant and other game in an apparent effort to conceal illegal activities from rangers. These poisonings are referred to as “sentinel poisonings”, as vultures circling over poached animals alert rangers to the killings.

Africa’s vulture populations have already declined by an average 62% over the past three decades - with seven species crashing by 80%. Experts recently warned that the continent’s vulture populations face the prospect of collapsing, in much the same way as vulture species did in Asia 30 years ago.

In the early 1990s, millions of Asian vultures died after eating the remains of cows in carcass dumps; India has 500 million cows raised for milk, but not eaten by the majority Hindu population. Scientists identified the culprit: diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used by vets. Vultures feeding on carcasses containing the drug died swiftly of kidney failure.

The reasons for the African vulture crisis are vastly different. They include habitat loss, ingestion of lead ammunition, collisions with power lines, accidental drownings in farm water reservoirs and the use of poisoned bait by livestock owners to kill predators like jackals. Vultures feeding off the carcasses subsequently die, often in significant numbers.

But many more are poisoned deliberately to harvest body parts for belief-based use.

“The vultures are killed for their heads and feet and other parts,” said Chris Kelly, a species director at Wildlife ACT. “This is definitely the single biggest threat to diminishing vulture populations in this province,” said Kelly.

In many parts of Africa, vultures are believed to have psychic powers, including an ability to see into the future.

According to a fact sheet from EWT, the brains of the bird are dried, rolled and smoked as joints or simply burnt and the fumes inhaled. Users believe this improves their odds when they gamble on the lottery or place bets on sport. Students take it when preparing for exams. Other reported uses of vultures include consuming their eyes to improve eyesight, their beaks for protection, or their feet to heal fractured bones or make a person run faster.

In 2014, EWT estimated that 130,000 traders, hunters and traditional healers were operating in South Africa. This figure is believed to have increased, sparking calls from conservationists, environmental scientists and wildlife experts at this year’s Conservation Symposium for an awareness-building campaign to reduce this consumption and demand for vulture parts.

“Vultures provide critically important ecosystem services by cleaning up carcasses thus reducing the spread of dangerous diseases such as anthrax and rabies and resulting in highly significant economic and human health benefits,” said Brent Coverdale, an animal scientist for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife at the symposium. “We really can’t afford to lose them.”

As vultures are protected by law, it is illegal to possess or kill any of the six vulture species found in South Africa. Nevertheless, deliberate killings continue.

Roberts said the latest poisoning incident had been reported to local police.

“We are hoping this leads to an arrest,” said Roberts. “If the illegal harvest of these birds is not halted, then extinction may be just around the corner and the services that they provide within the ecosystem will be lost forever.”

As part of a bid to save vulture populations, managers of conservation areas and private game reserves in South Africa are collaborating to create safe havens for existing vulture populations. Read more at www.rovingreporters.co.za - Additional reporting, Mlu Mdlethse, Roving Reporters

Kockott is the founding director of Roving Reporters, a journalism training agency that focuses on environmental, social and justice issues.

The Mercury

[Lisbeth]

It is the fourth vulture poisoning incident in northern Zululand this year

Which IMO points to ONE group of people. The ones who should be investigating are simply not doing their job once again.

In 2020 one would think that witchcraft has done its time, but no! in the beautiful insanity that is South Africa, it has not

[Lisbeth]

Hooded vulture © Landie Fourie

2,000 vultures now feared poisoned in Guinea-Bissau – largest mass mortality ever

Posted on April 21, 2020 by News Desk in the NEWS DESK post series

Over 2,000 vultures (updated from 1,000 as previously reported) have reportedly died in various incidents across Guinea-Bissau, due to poisoning related to belief-based use. The situation now amounts to the biggest ever mass vulture mortality event in the world. Information provided by the Vulture Conservation Foundation.

Editorial update 21 April 2020:

The latest estimate of critically endangered hooded vultures to have died from poisoning across Guinea-Bissau is in excess of 2,000. Evidence collected during the field missions organized by the authorities suggests that the vultures have been killed deliberately using poisoned baits. Reports from witnesses corroborate that vultures were poisoned intentionally, using poison baits placed around villages so that vulture parts could be collected for belief-based use (ritual use), with demand related to the country’s political instability. In some parts of Africa, some communities believe that possession of vulture heads is thought to bring good fortune or even special powers. In Guinea-Bissau at least 200 of the poisoned vultures have been found without their heads. Additionally, there have been reports that high demand for vulture body parts from neighbouring countries may have played a role.

To help confirm the cause of death, vulture carcasses have been collected and sent to Lisbon with one of the last planes that flew out of Guinea-Bissau before the global lock-down imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and toxicological analysis are now being carried out in Lisbon university.
Editorial update 6 March 2020: The number of vulture mortalities is now nearing 1000 individuals throughout Guinea-Bissau – an unprecedented and disastrous blow to the already plummeting populations of vultures in West Africa. The dead vultures have generally been found in groups on the outskirts of towns spread throughout the country, with numbers around 300-600 in Bafatá, 400-493 in Gabú, 40-96 in Bambadinca and 23 in Quebo. As was initially the case, most of the vulture casualties appear to be hooded vultures and the carcasses were incinerated immediately to minimise the potential contamination. Disconcertingly, the cause remains unidentified, though poisoning is still a distinct possibility, and the situation has been made all the more challenging due to political instability throughout Guinea-Bissau.

There have been no mortalities reported over the past few days which may be a positive sign, but the Vulture Conservation Foundation and the IUCN’s Vulture Specialist Group continue to offer their support to the local authorities.

Vulture poisoning is one of the main threats facing vulture populations throughout Africa, and incidents have been known to kill hundreds of vultures at a time. With further reports of dead vultures coming in from other regions of Guinea-Bissau, the reason behind the deaths remains to be established.

A quick response team was mobilised to incinerate the carcasses of the dead vultures to minimise the risk of spread of either poison or pathogen and the World Health Organisation office in Guinea-Bissau is involved in case there is a potential risk of a public health threat.

Africa’s vulture populations have already declined by an average 62% over the past three decades — with seven species crashing by 80%. Most of the afflicted vultures appear to be hooded vultures, which are considered to be Critically Endangered in West Africa, and this incident could have enormous ramifications for their population.

The Vulture Conservation Foundation and the IUCN’s Vulture Specialist Group have both expressed alarm over the incident in Guinea-Bissau and have stressed the urgency of the situation as well as pledging support to the authorities. So far, the reactions of the Guinea-Bissau authorities have been rapid, but the main priority now is to identify the cause behind these widespread vulture deaths.