Endangered vultures poisoned for muti

At least 150 critically endangered vultures have been poisoned in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa, conservationists said last Friday, warning the killings pushed the birds closer to extinction.

Vulture poisoning is not uncommon in wildlife-rich southern Africa, where they are targeted by poachers because they draw unwanted attention to their illegal activities.

Their heads are also used in traditional medicine, according to wildlife groups. In the latest incidents, more than 50 white-backed vultures were found dead in Botswana’s northern Chobe district last Friday.

About 100 more were discovered in the Kruger National Park last Thursday, according to vulture conservation group Vulpro.

In both cases, the birds died after feeding from the carcass of a buffalo, which appeared to have been laced with poison, said the vulture conservation programme’s founder, Kerri Wolter.

“What makes this even more catastrophic is that it’s breeding season now,” Wolter said, explaining chicks could not survive without their parents.

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Park officials in South Africa said they were investigating the incident, adding that some of the carcasses appeared to have been harvested for their body parts.

“Given the critical status of vultures globally, poisonings at this scale place the species at increasing risk of extinction,” Yolan Friedmann, head of the Endangered Wildlife Trust conservation group, said in a statement on the Kruger incident.

The white-backed vulture is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of critically endangered bird species.

One of the largest vulture deaths recorded in recent years in Botswana was in 2019, when 537 carcasses were discovered in the Chobe game reserve after they ate the carcasses of three elephants killed by poachers.