Over 700 wild black vultures died in Georgia after the bird flu broke out and infected the animals at Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary. Newsweek reported that the dead vultures were found on August 13, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting that this year, over 2,100 wild birds and over 40 million […]
Tag: vulture
Traditional Witch Doctors Blamed For Murder of Over 100 Vultures They Use For Potions
After 100 vultures in a South African park died, witch doctors are being blamed for poisoning them so that they can use their body parts in black magic potions. At least 150 critically endangered vultures were poisoned to death in Botswana and South Africa in two separate events last week. Around 100 were found dead […]
![A Cape vulture flies low at the Vulpro Vulture Rehabilitation Centre in Hartebeepoort Dam in the Magalisburg region of South Africa in 2015 [Mujahid Safodien/AFP] (AFP)](https://focusingonwildlife.com/news/wp-content/uploads/000_Par8276044.jpg "More than 150 endangered vultures poisoned in South Africa, Botswana")
More than 150 endangered vultures poisoned in South Africa, Botswana
At least 150 critically-endangered vultures were poisoned to death in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa, conservationists said, warning that the mass killings pushed the birds closer to extinction. In the latest incidents, more than 50 white-backed vultures were found dead in Botswana’s northern Chobe district on Friday, while about 100 others were discovered […]
Life at 30: the EU project that has saved species from lynx to flying squirrels
“It has been a miracle,” whispers biologist Gabriel Llorens Folgado as he studies a tumble of granite boulders for any signs of movement. The miracle is that Spain’s lynx population has been saved. Today, in the wildflower-coated hills of the Sierra de Andújar in southern Spain, Folgado is looking for Magarza and her four cubs. […]
Scientists uncover widespread declines of raptors in Kenya
A recent study confirms alarming declines in raptor populations in Kenya. Incidental poisoning is a major problem for vultures in particular, depriving ecosystems of the birds’ vital role as scavengers. Conservationists are working with communities to help species recover. “The population of raptors today bears no resemblance to those numbers we saw a half century […]
Conservation win for Bangladesh as efforts to halt vulture decline pay off
Vultures were a common sight across the Indian subcontinent until the late 1980s. But the excessive use of some veterinary drugs for cattle, which are toxic to the scavengers, and loss of habitat, led to a drastic fall in vulture numbers in the wild. By 2017, some species’ populations had fallen by 95%. However, in […]
Large number of Himalayan griffon vultures killed by pesticide poisoning
More than 95 Himalayan griffon vultures and a steppe eagle were discovered dead in the Chaiygaon region of Milanpur village in Assam’s Kamrup district on March 17, 2022. Prasanna, a local conservationist in Milanpur village, told Down to Earth on March 18 that “about a hundred Himalayan vultures have died all of a sudden.” “The […]
Born to be wild: India’s first captive-bred endangered vultures set free
In February, the doors of an aviary in West Bengal’s Buxa tiger reserve were flung open. Eight critically endangered captive-bred white-rumped vultures cautiously emerged and within minutes were mingling with wild vultures, devouring the meat of carcasses left out by a team of researchers from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). The birds were raised […]