BirdLife Partners
around the world have joined with raptor conservation and research
organisations to celebrate International Vulture Awareness Day, with events and
awareness raising taking place. This comes against a backdrop of problems
facing vultures in Africa and Asia.
Vultures are an
ecologically vital group of birds that face a range of threats in many areas
that they occur. Populations of many species are under pressure and some species
are facing extinction.
International
Vulture Awareness Day, which took place on 1st September, provides a way to
remind people of their plight and their importance.
Vultures fulfill
an extremely important ecological role. They keep the environment free of carcasses
and waste, restrict the spread of diseases such as anthrax and botulism, and
help control numbers of pests such as rats and feral dogs by reducing the food
available to them. They are of cultural value to communities in Africa and Asia, and have important eco-tourism value.
However, vulture
populations are in steep decline across the globe. In India,
populations of three formerly very common species of vulture have declined by
more than 97% as a result of
consuming cattle carcasses contaminated with the veterinary drug diclofenac.
In 2006, the
governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal finally introduced a ban on
the manufacture of diclofenac and pharmaceutical firms are now encouraged to
promote an alternative drug, meloxicam, which is proven to be safe for
vultures. The manufacturing ban has had some success in reducing the drug’s
prevalence. Unfortunately, there is still no ban on the sale or use of the drug
and the overall trend across South Asia
remains one of continuing vulture declines.
In East Africa
there have been mass vulture deaths associated with misuse of chemicals, huge
population declines in West Africa due to habitat loss, and the disappearance
of vultures from large areas of their formers ranges in South Africa
because of the continued use of vulture parts in traditional medicine and
sorcery.
Other threats
include power line collisions and electrocutions, disturbance at breeding
sites, drowning in farm reservoirs, direct persecution and declining food
availability.
Cape Vulture
The Cape Vulture
- Gyps coprotheres - is endemic to Southern Africa and is found
mainly in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana
and Namibia.
Description
A large vulture
with near-naked head and neck. Adult creamy-buff, with contrasting dark flight-
and tail-feathers. Pale buff neck-ruff. Underwing in flight has pale silvery
secondary feathers and black alula. Yellowish eye, black bill, bluish throat
and facial skin, dark neck. Juveniles and immatures generally darker and more
streaked, with brown to orange eyes and red neck. The two prominent bare skin
patches at the base of the neck, are thought to be temperature sensors and used
for detecting the presence of thermals.
Call
Calls are loud
cackles, grunts, hisses and roars.
Food
Cape Vultures feed on carrion, searching aerially for a
carcass to feed on. They can eat 1.5kg at a sitting, which is over 15 percent
of the weight of an adult bird and can do this in five minutes. It slices off
flesh with the sharp edge of its bill eating it and storing some in its crop,
which can sustain it for about three days.
Breeding
It nests on
cliffs and usually lays one egg per year.
Monogamous
colonial nester, breeding in colonies. They nest and roost on cliffs and
usually lay one egg per year. The nest is mainly built by the female,
consisting of a bulky platform of sticks, twigs and dry grass, with a shallow
cup in the centre lined with smaller sticks and grass. It is typically placed
on a cliff ledge, often using the same site over multiple breeding seasons.
The breeding
season is between May and June with a single egg laid, which is incubated by
both sexes for about 55 to 59 days. The chick is brooded constantly for the
first 72 days, while both parents feed it. It eventually leaves the nest at
about 125-171 days old, becoming fully independent about 15 to 221 days later.
Conservation Status – Least Concern
Vulnerable
globally. It is regionally extinct in Swaziland
and Critically Endangered in Namibia.
Its global population has decreased dramatically, the current population is
estimated at 8,000. This is thought to have been largely caused by habitat
loss, persecution for use in traditional medicine, human disturbance of
colonies, poisoning and improvements in animal husbandry resulting in a
decreased availability of carrion.
Birdwatching
These large
Vultures can be seen on the following Aves
Birding Tours/Safaris/Adventures: -
Aves Arid Birding
Tour / Safari /Adventure.
Aves Eastern Cape Birding
Tour / Safari /Adventure.
Aves Highlands / Tembe Birding Tour / Safari /
Adventure.
Aves KZN Birding
Tour / Safari / Adventure.
Aves North East
Birding Tour / Safari / Adventure.
Aves North West Birding Tour
/ Safari / Adventure.
Aves Western Cape Birding
Tour / Safari / Adventure.