More than 150 endangered vultures poisoned in South Africa, Botswana

Birds died after feeding from carcass of buffalo, which appeared to have been laced with poison, conservationist says.

A Cape vulture flies low on the Vulpro Vulture Rehabilitation Centre in Hartebeepoort Dam within the Magalisburg area of South Africa in 2015 [Mujahid Safodien/AFP] (AFP)

A minimum of 150 critically-endangered vultures have been poisoned to dying in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa, conservationists mentioned, warning that the mass killings pushed the birds nearer to extinction.

Within the newest incidents, greater than 50 white-backed vultures have been discovered lifeless in Botswana’s northern Chobe district on Friday, whereas about 100 others have been found in South Africa’s Kruger Nationwide Park on Thursday, in keeping with vulture conservation group Vulpro.

“The repercussions of those poisonings are enormous. It’s breeding season so their chicks won't survive and breeding pairs have been misplaced for good,” the organisation tweeted.

“Vulture populations can't face up to these losses and the specter of extinction creeps ever nearer.”

In each poisoning circumstances, the birds died after feeding from the carcass of a buffalo, which appeared to have been laced with poison, Vulpro’s founder Kerri Wolter mentioned.

“What makes this much more catastrophic is that it’s breeding season now” and chicks won't survive with out their dad and mom, Wolter mentioned.

Park officers in South Africa mentioned they have been investigating the incident, including a few of the carcasses appeared to have been harvested for his or her physique elements.

“Given the important standing of vultures globally, poisonings at this scale place the species at rising threat of extinction,” Yolan Friedmann, the top of the Endangered Wildlife Belief conservation group, mentioned in an announcement on the Kruger incident.

We sadly finish this week with some exceptionally unhappy information. During the last 2 days, 150 vultures have been poisoned in two separate incidents (1 in Kruger Nationwide Park and the opposite Chobe Botswana). These killings have been geared toward focusing on vultures for muti. pic.twitter.com/4YIYOKqZQh

— VulPro (@WeLoveVultures) August 12, 2022

Vulture poisoning shouldn't be unusual in wildlife-rich southern Africa, the place they're preyed on by poachers as a result of they draw undesirable consideration to their unlawful actions.

Their heads are additionally utilized in conventional drugs, in keeping with wildlife teams.

The white-backed vulture is listed on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) “crimson checklist” of critically-endangered fowl species.

One of many largest vulture deaths recorded lately in Botswana was in 2019, when 537 carcasses have been found within the Chobe sport reserve after they ate carcasses of three elephants killed by poachers.