African vultures are in great danger
Vultures are in danger of disappearing and urgent steps should be taken to save them.
WHITE RIVER – As part of a plan to save these birds, Wessa Lowveld held a fund-raiser at the Penryn College auditorium on Wednesday.
The guest speaker was expert André Botha, from Birds of Prey at the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
The main causes of the drop in African vulture populations are thought to be indiscriminate poisonings, electrocution, collision with power lines, use of vulture body parts in traditional medicine, and deliberate targeting by poachers as the presence of vultures can alert authorities to illegally killed carcasses.
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Other factors include habitat disruption from human development.
“The value of vultures as scavengers is essential to a healthy ecosystem. Without vultures, carcasses will be consumed by scavengers such as dogs and jackals, which can increase levels of disease transmission with possibly dire consequences for human health. Also, the traditional muti belief that its head gives a person powers has contributed a lot to its extinction,” said Botha.
According to Botha, research showed that vultures are highly mobile and can cover several-hundred kilometres a day in search of food, which makes the implementation of effective conservation measures to benefit these species a daunting task.
Seven of the nine southern African vulture species are listed in the Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.
September 1 is International Vulture Awareness Day.
“The first international event was celebrated by 159 organisations representing 44 countries in 2011. More countries have joined the initiative to save the vultures,” said Botha.
Danielle Carstens from Wessa, said the event was about the conservation of vultures. “It is clear that human population is impacting largely on vulture species. Without them, it will have an impact on a human population.
“We need to save them in order to save the human population, because of certain diseases that can be spread by carcasses,” said Carstens.
