A threatened refuge<\/h2>\n
Arua district shares its western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Armed conflict has displaced more than 260,000 people from DRC and South Sudan across this frontier into Arua, according to the UNHCR, the United Nations\u2019 refugee agency. Refugees now make up nearly a quarter of the district\u2019s population of more than 800,000 people, and those who have settled near Luku, along with native Ugandans, look to the reserve for a source of livelihood \u2014 notably for farming and charcoal production.<\/p>\n
On our visit there in late September, Mongabay witnesses large parts of a once-forested landscape transformed into a mosaic of scrub and a few scattered trees.<\/p>\n
This is a problem for the vultures. The nesting material that Oruka spotted the vultures with appeared to be from a native hardwood, Antiaris toxicaria, known locally as doro. This tree is less popular with charcoal burners and therefore left standing. But now even these trees are under threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same tree that the vultures love to roost in,\u201d Oruka adds. \u201cSometimes we have observed vultures spending the whole night in those trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angoandia Gopine, a community leader and farmer from the nearby village of Ngolonyako who volunteered to help Oruka with his fieldwork in Luku, has lived his whole life near the forest reserve. He says the spot near the base of the cliff is unrecognizable from the place he knew as a youngster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some big trees here around the rock,\u201d he says. \u201cBut now, you see, all the trees are [cut] down.\u201d He points to a bare patch of ground near where he and Oruka are standing. It\u2019s the site of a former charcoal kiln.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is some of the evidence,\u201d he says. \u201cCharcoal burning has become a big project here because people are poor. They don\u2019t know where to [find another source of livelihood to] survive from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local sources tell Mongabay that charcoal produced in Luku, mostly by poorly paid women and children, is shipped to merchants in the nearby town of Arua, and then to markets as far away as Kampala, the capital, around 450 kilometers (280 miles) to the southeast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are old women who go into the forest, walk 5 kilometers [to reach the charcoal kilns], sleep there for two weeks burning charcoal and return with charcoal that is worth 5,000 [Ugandan shillings, less than $2],\u201d Caroline Kansiine, a manager with the National Forestry Authority (NFA), tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n The smoke that rises from the kilns near the cliffs also disturbs the vultures, Oruka says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe birds are basically smoked out, mostly on the lower ledges,\u201d he says. \u201c[They] resort to flying [off] leaving maybe the young or the eggs in critical stages, uncovered, unincubated, and that affects [their breeding success].\u201d<\/p>\n He and colleagues recently published the first comprehensive study on the Luku nesting colony. Out of 14 nests monitored from 2023-2024, only eight successfully raised a chick \u2014 a breeding success rate of just 57%. This year was only marginally better.<\/p>\n Figures on R\u00fcppell\u2019s vultures\u2019 breeding success elsewhere are scarce, though one record from a nesting colony in Tanzania\u2019s Serengeti region in 1970 detailed an 82% success rate, even though food supplies that year were poor. And similar cliff-nesting griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) at undisturbed sites in Europe raise around 75% of their chicks.<\/p>\n The disturbances from charcoal-burning in Luku aren\u2019t the only human-induced impacts the birds are facing.<\/p>\n The proliferation of farms and settlements in and around the reserve has triggered an influx of what scientists call synanthropic species \u2014 wild animals like olive baboons (Papio anubis), vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) and pied crows (Corvus albus) that flourish in the presence of people but present new threats to vultures.<\/p>\n Farmers frequently poison baboons for stealing maize and beans, or for killing chickens and calves, which can be deadly for vultures that feed on baboon carcasses. And pied crows, which are known to rob vulture nests, chase brooding vultures from their nests, exposing their chicks and eggs.<\/p>\n R\u00fcppell\u2019s vultures only raise one chick per year, so any loss is a heavy blow.<\/p>\n Local officials say poor relations between forestry officials and community members means laws to safeguard Luku aren\u2019t regularly enforced.<\/p>\n \u201cIdeally we are supposed to do enforcement monthly but we don\u2019t have manpower,\u201d says Hannington Adroonzi, a senior district environmental officer.<\/p>\n Even when enforcement is done, it can be dangerous because of the heightened tensions.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t move alone,\u201d Adroonzi says, citing the risk of confronting illegal wood harvesters in possession of axes and machetes. \u201cIf you go there alone, without force, if you meet such people, they can kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n John Wagida, vice chair for Ajia subcounty, a local administrative area located near the boundary of Luku, confirms that numbers of R\u00fcppell\u2019s vultures, known in the local Lugbara language as roko, have declined markedly since he was young.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, they are hardly seen unless you take time to go to Rokoze,\u201d he said, using the Lugbara name for the rocky places where vultures nest.<\/p>\n Wagida suggests mounting a massive awareness campaign to highlight the threats facing the vultures and encourage locals to stop burning and clearing the forest.<\/p>\n Back inside the reserve, Mongabay accompanies Oruka to a second nesting cliff comprising around 60 pairs of vultures that he\u2019s only recently documented. It\u2019s around an hour, by car and by foot, from the first site. A charcoal kiln smolders about 20 meters (66 feet) from the base of the cliff, and a well-worn path, made by woodcutters, snakes its way up the side of the hill.<\/p>\n Freshly built vulture nests are visible on the cliff ledges, but no eggs have yet been laid.<\/p>\n At the top of the cliff, Oruka stoops to pick up some dung \u2014 small, bean-sized pellets. These are the droppings of rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis), small, stout, short-legged herbivores distantly related to elephants that are targeted by hunters, including some who cross the border from the DRC with their dogs. If they don\u2019t find hyraxes, the hunters often take vulture chicks and eggs.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople told me how they crushed [the vulture] bones and their feathers for belief-based uses, including their eggs,\u201d Oruka says. \u201cThe eggs and the vulture itself \u2014 they have a strong market in Congo.\u201d<\/p>\n Kansiine, the NFA official, says a strategy to promote collaborative forest management between members of the community and her agency might be needed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they know [the forest] is very important [for wildlife like vultures], they can change their behavior,\u201d she says. \u201cIf the community left them, [Luku\u2019s native trees] can regenerate and grow.\u201d<\/p>\n But offering alternative livelihoods to this hard-pressed community is also crucial. Many people in Arua look to the forest as their only source of income, she says, and right now there\u2019s no political will to change this.<\/p>\n \u201cYou arrest people who burn charcoal, you take them to the police, politicians remove them quickly [from custody],\u201d she says. \u201cThey don\u2019t want their voters arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n Oruka, I., Malinga, G. M., Kato, S. S., Ogada, D., & Pomeroy, D. (2025). Breeding dynamics and threats identified at a small colony of critically endangered R\u00fcppell\u2019s vultures Gyps rueppellii in a Ugandan forest reserve. Ostrich, 96(2), 123-130. doi:10.2989\/00306525.2025.2540269<\/p>\nUnwelcome neighbors<\/h2>\n
Protecting the forest<\/h2>\n
Opportunist hunting<\/h2>\n
Citation:<\/h2>\n