Saving Africa’s Vultures, a new project to tackle the continent’s escalating vulture crisis, is now up and running, with three initial, targeted pilot schemes in Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe that aim to find out more about – and significantly reduce – the greatest threat facing African vultures: poisoning. Eleven species of vulture occur in Africa, […]
Tag: White-backed Vulture
Rüppell’s Vulture Sightings in Europe
After watching a huge flock of Griffon Vultures circling over the evergreen cork-oak canopy of the vast Alcornocales Parque Natural we eventually saw many birds descend down to the ground and out of sight. We could hear their hissing and squabbling and immediately knew that the birds were feeding at an animal carcass of some […]
Sabi Sands: February 2010 (Part 1)
Some of you may recall that I have been posting some WAY overdue trip reports on my blog as well. I am still far behind, but I thought it best to get going again…my last report was a series of posts on a trip with my wife to the Kruger National Park in 2009. Let’s […]
Europe approves vet drug that killed off almost all of Asia’s vultures
When Europeans first arrived in North America, they exterminated three to five billion passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) in the short span of a century through a combination of habitat destruction and hunting. In 1914, the last living passenger pigeon perished at the Cincinnati Zoo. Despite the staggering scale of this extinction event, three species of […]
Stop poisoning endangered white vultures in South Africa!
37 white-backed vultures were found dead after it was established they had been poisoned. It all happened in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. It is not the first case of vulture poisoning – the birds now face a declining population and may soon become extinct! The vulture died after feeding from on an […]
Elephant Poachers Poison Hundreds of Vultures to Evade Authorities
The ongoing slaughter of Africa’s elephants is at record levels. The situation has gotten out of hand in many countries, especially those lacking the resources to fight the increase in demand for ivory from the Far East. With wildlife authorities struggling to save the remaining tuskers, there has been little attention paid to the other… […]
Thermals and more…
Migration: Black Kites are the first raptor to migrate and cross The Strait of Gibraltar. The skies will continue to be filled with them slowly moving down towards Tarifa and if the wind is too strong for them to cross to Morocco there will be a huge build up as more and more arrive in […]
Vultures in Spain
There are four different species of vultures breeding on the Iberian peninsula and probably the Lammergeier is the most impressive of them all. It’s also one of the birds on most raptor enthusiast’s wish list and not always an easy bird to see at close range. Like many people until I saw one at a […]