Threats to Vultures & Vulture Conservation

[Toko]

Vanishing vultures: Africa’s fetish and bushmeat trade is driving its scavengers to extinction

[Lisbeth]

It is much worse than I thought

[nan]

not better than in others parts of the world

[Toko]

http://letabaherald.co.za/15892/vulture ... aba-ranch/

22 Vultures have been poisoned for suspected muti purposes in Letaba Ranch.
1 day ago


According to Walinzi Wildlife Protection Unit Director Darryl Shaun Milner, traditional healers believed that sleeping with a vulture’s head gave a person clairvoyant powers and the ability to predict sports scores, Lotto numbers and the like.

‘This poaching was definitely intentional poaching for muti reasons ‘,he said.

The carcasses were found on Friday November 20, by a group of volunteers called the Letaba Ranch Honorary Rangers which is headed up by Lutz Otto.

Otto said they had found 22 poisoned vultures.

The carcasses were found hidden in a drainage line.

Their heads, gillets, chests and most of their feet were removed. He said he had observed no tags. The white backed vultures were killed with parts of a buffalo carcass laced with poison that was strategically positioned in a clearing on a crest of a hill to kill them.

Milner said the buffalo were caught in snares and once they had died, the poachers butcher the buffalo and poison the meat which they then place in a high open area for the vultures to see.

‘ The vultures then eat the poisoned meat which kills them close by as it has a very quick reaction’, said Milner.

He said poachers used poison because it was quick and also did not damage the vulture.

According to Milner this was the first time that vulture carcasses had been found on this particular reserve.

‘ There has been a huge national increase with Vulture Poaching as a whole, all over South Africa. The general public do not concentrate on vulture poachers and/or do not know about it as the Vulture is not classified as a “high end” species such as the rhino’, said Milner.

He said farmers needed to be more educated about vultures and how to deal with them as well as how to prevent poachers on their land.

‘More security needs to be introduced on the farms and the security should not only focus on specific species such as the rhino etc. Live stock farmers have also been known to poison vultures as they put out a carcass of an animal which they poison to kill off animals such as the jackal, but unfortunately vultures also eat the carcass and are then poisoned and die, it was not the case in this incident though’, he added.

According to Milner, Otto, who headed up the Letaba Ranch Honorary rangers, got groups of volunteers to join him for weekends at Letaba Ranch National Park to help do Anti Poaching patrols to collect snares as LRNP ( Letaba Ranch National Park) had a huge problem with snare poaching for meat.

He said just this year, they had collected more than 250 snares.

Otto said based on the severity of this problem Dr Gerhard Verdoorn and Andre Botha from the EWT were immediately contacted.

He said this was the third separate poisoning that he was aware of this year.

‘ An increase of this activity is extremely concerning – Besides they serve negative consequence on an already endangered species, this poison if not controlled, continues to work through the ecosystem as it indiscriminately kills particularly predators, omnivores and scavengers’, he concluded.

[Lisbeth]

[Mel]

‘ An increase of this activity is extremely concerning – Besides they serve negative consequence on an already endangered species, this poison if not controlled, continues to work through the ecosystem as it indiscriminately kills particularly predators, omnivores and scavengers’, he concluded.

That's the bottom line (no pun intended!) of it all, I think...

[Toko]

http://lowvelder.co.za/322323/a-vital-l ... e-of-life/

A vital link in the circle of life
A recent review has resulted in six vulture species in Africa being uplisted to the category, critically endangered, in November 2015. The review attributes their declining status partly to the impact of widespread poisoning.
3 hours ago

“Imagine an African sky without a single vulture circling the air or gracefully sweeping down towards some prey. It sounds impossible but it is beginning to be a real probability,” said Mr André Botha, manager of the Birds of Prey Programme at the Endangered Wildlife Trust and co-chairman of the IUCN SSC Vulture Specialist Group.

A recent review has resulted in six vulture species in Africa being uplisted to the category, critically endangered, in November 2015. The review attributes their declining status partly to the impact of widespread poisoning.

Botha spoke to Lowvelder about the ecological importance of vultures after the disastrous poison poaching incident on Saturday February 27 in the Kruger National Park which claimed 110 critically endangered white-backed vultures, two male lions and two black-backed jackals.

“The potential impact of losing so many vultures is felt widely and the consequences thereof cannot be easily overcome in a short time for various reasons,” said Botha.
Prior to 2012, vulture poisonings in southern Africa were mostly mostly related to secondary poisoning where the birds were killed during poorly managed predator control efforts by livestock farmers.

From 2012 to 2014 Botha and a team of researchers, however, documented 11 poaching-related incidents in seven African countries, which collectively killed 155 elephants and
2 044 vultures.

Vulture mortalities associated with ivory poaching has, in the past five years, increased alarmingly and now accounts for one-third of all poisonings recorded since 1970.

Vultures roam widely when they are not breeding. Botha remarked on how some that were wing-tagged by colleagues in Kimberley were found dead during the tragic poisoning incident in the Caprivi a few years ago when between 400 and 600 vultures were killed. This was more than 900 kilometres from where these birds were marked.

If adult-breeding vultures are killed during the breeding season, chicks are unable to survive on their own.

Vultures are not efficient single parents as duties are equally shared between both adults and it is highly unlikely that a single parent will raise a viable fledgling
on its own.

“A pair of parents breeds one chick a year. It can take up to five years to bring this chick to adulthood,” Botha said.

He also explained that where vulture populations had declined to an unsustainable level, a higher risk of disease outbreak in livestock, wildlife and even people was likely. “Especially in times of drought when more than usual carcasses are found in the veld, we need their specialist skills to ensure the health of an ecosystem,” concurred Botha.

Their feeding behaviour at a carcasses is sadly what often leads to their demise. Vultures are designed and physiologically programmed to be competitive, efficient and fast during feeding time.

A wide range of substances are used for the poisoning of vultures and other wildlife. The off-label use of agrochemicals in particular is a problem and these substances are often removed from their original packaging and sold in variable quantities and repackaged in a different format.

Most of these are widely available in many African countries, are often subject to insufficient controls, and are readily smuggled across borders.

“These products are often sold at informal shops next to roads. Poachers have ready access to these products.”

The African Convention on Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), signed by most countries in the region, prohibits use of poison and poisoned or anaesthetic bait as a method for hunting wildlife.

In accordance with this commitment, IUCN requested governments and environmental authorities across Africa to implement and develop legislation urgently to control the sale, storage, distribution, and restrict the use and disposal of chemicals known to be used in the indiscriminate killing of wildlife.

“However, all agrochemicals cannot simply be banned as they also have a real purpose in terms of food production,” said Botha.

This recent surge in the illegal use of poisons reflects certain weaknesses in the regulations, for which certain control measures were proposed. These were primarily aimed at retail controls.

Botha pointed out that these measures were not enough because poachers already operated well outside of any legal framework.

“African governments require international support in applying more effective law enforcement, punitive sentencing against mass wildlife poisoning and the disposal of obsolete agro-chemicals. Creating greater awareness of the public health threat associated with the consumption of wildlife products acquired by means of poisoning is also essential,” Botha concluded.

[Lisbeth]

This is disastrous!

[Puff Addy]

Electrocution of endangered Cape vultures probed
2016-03-30 18:02

Jenna Etheridge, News24

Cape Town – The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and Eskom are probing the electrocution of approximately 49 endangered Cape vultures along power lines in the Eastern Cape town of Elliot at the weekend.

EWT energy programme manager, Constant Hoogstad, said they were addressing “the devastating situation” after conservationist Walter Neser reported it.

He said EWT relied on reports from conservation and birding enthusiasts to identify problem power lines. Energy and telecommunications structures were tall and linear, which increased the risk of bird strikes.

“Due to their large wingspans, heavy bodies and gregarious nature, vultures are among one of the most high-risk bird groups when it comes to mortality on Eskom infrastructure,” he said.

Threat to wildlife

EWT partnered with Eskom in 1996 to deal with threats to wildlife. All reported incidents are recorded in a national register, apparently the only such register in the world.

Since the inception of the partnership, the deaths of 1 262 vultures had been recorded.

“Once a mortality is reported, an EWT fieldworker or Eskom staff member will visit the incident location to compile a detailed report of all the relevant information,” said Hoogstad.

EWT then recommended solutions and worked with Eskom to mitigate the risk. It conducted independent annual audits on randomly-selected sites.

Hoogstad said Eskom had developed a standard more than a decade ago to ensure all new power lines were designed to be bird-friendly.

Vulture mortalities

This meant it should not be possible for birds with large wingspans to breach the gap between two live conductors or between live and earth phases.

“Tragically, none of the nine provinces in South Africa are immune to vulture mortalities,” he said.

North West recorded the highest number of vulture strikes. Hoogstad attributed this to numerous vulture colonies present there, the large number of protected areas, limited trees for perching, and less competition for food from scavengers.

Members of the public should report wildlife deaths on electrical infrastructure to 0860 111 535.

http://www.news24.com/Green/News/electr ... d-20160330

[Toko]

Power lines kill more large birds than poachers and that could be fixed easier than the the poisoning