When googling “world’s ugliest animals”, the vulture often features on the author’s hit-list. While they may not possess the beauty or charisma of other keystone species, their importance for our planet cannot be overstated. The global decline of this flesh-eater has impacts as far-reaching as environmental degradation, wildlife conservation, public health, and culture.
How devastating was the vulture crisis?
23 species of vulture exist across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Today, sixteen are threatened with extinction. Elders of communities around the world recount times when vultures were so numerous that they would blacken the sky during a feast. However, their number have been in free-fall for decades and time is running out to save them.
The Californian Condor became extinct in the wild in 1987 and just over 500 individuals exist today thanks to intensive breeding programmed. The IUCN has categorized the majority of Africa’s vulture as endangered or critically endangered, while some populations in South Asia have declined by 99.9%. Forty years ago, the combined number of white-rumped, long-billed, and slender-billed Gyps vultures totaled 40,000,000, but as of 2017 their populations have collapsed to just 6,000, 12,000 and 1,000 respectively.
The Catastrophic Consequences of the Vulture Crisis
Their loss is felt amongst land, wildlife, and human alike. In Europe the recycling of nutrients has been disrupted, causing weakened grasslands. These ecosystems absorb 263 million tonnes of CO2 annually, so their health is crucial.
Vultures also benefit other wildlife as they dispose of 70% of decomposing flesh and prevent transmission of deadly diseases to endangered species. With the lowest gastric pH in the animal kingdom and stomach acid 100x stronger than ours, vultures are uniquely positioned to remove pathogens from the environment – including anthrax, cholera, and rabies. In the Ivory Coast, anthrax epidemics threaten chimpanzees with local extinction. Failure to stabilize the scavengers helping to eradicate such diseases puts another nail in the coffin of disappearing species.
In India, vulture loss had profound effects on public health and the economy. Local beliefs prohibit people consuming cattle, so vultures were once responsible for processing millions of tons of rotting beef per year. Without competition from the aerial scavengers, feral dogs hijacked their ecological niche and populations boomed. Certain areas saw their presence swell by 30%, exposing more people to rabies. Deaths increased by 50,000 and the government is spending billions of dollars annually to maintain some semblance of control over the disease.
We are also at risk of losing ancient cultures and customs as vulture populations plummet. It seems impossible to imagine the Parsi Tower of Silence becoming any quieter, but gone are days of vultures squawking and squabbling as they feast on human flesh. The 3,000-year-old sky burial tradition performed by mountain communities can no longer rely on vultures to dispose of their dead, so are turning to solar panels and mirrors to desiccate bodies.
What caused the vulture crisis?
Threats to vultures are numerous and include typical culprits like habitat destruction and plastic ingestion. Approximately 9% of deaths in Africa are caused by collisions with electrical infrastructure, while industrial farming is partially to blame in Europe. One-hundred years ago, shepherds and vultures existed in symbiosis. When a flock member died, vultures would strip the carcass before it could attract dangerous predators like bears and wolves. Today, livestock rarely live and die on the open grasslands, depriving vultures of a once-abundant food source.
Poison, not picked
However, by far the most devastating unnatural death for vultures globally is poisoning – both deliberate and unintentional. In Asia, the crash has been attributed to accidental poisoning via the use of veterinarian diclofenac in agriculture. Vultures are unable to process this anti-inflammatory drug and develop kidney failure if ingested.
Lead poisoning from spent ammunition played a significant role in the fate of the Californian Condor. Hunters often leave gut piles containing toxic bullet fragments behind after they have field-dressed their kills, while ranchers will shoot “nuisance” animals such as boar and leave their bodies to be stripped by scavengers.
In Africa, vultures are collateral damage in human-wildlife conflicts between farmers and carnivores. Intending to enact revenge for slain livestockpredators are lured to their deaths through poison-laced carcasses. However, poison does not discriminate, and vultures are often accidental victims either through consumption of the bait or the contaminated predator carcass.
Unfortunately, deliberate poisoning is also prolific in Africa. As the sentinels of the skies, vultures are targeted by poachers because they alert authorities to illegal activities. To prevent their aerial circling exposing kill sites, poachers set poison baits to pre-emptively kill near-by vultures.
Poison is also used to harvest huge quantities of the birds for belief-based use. Vulture parts are vital ingredients for Juju witchcraft in western Africa and Muthi traditional medicine in the south. Although lacking scientific evidence, many believe vulture flesh cures physiological, psychological, and spiritual ailments – including epilepsy, stroke, and insanity. Their brains are particularly valued for perceived clairvoyant powers, and people ingest them to summon good fortune in life, love, and lotteries
Vultures are truly irreplaceable
Vultures are the only obligate scavenger on the planet and while other scavengers may be eager to capitalize on their downfall, they lack specialized adaptations to do a robust job of carrion clean-up. Not only is flying more energy efficient than terrestrial locomotion, it also enables a greater degree of carcass detection and accessibility. Greater Yellow-Headed vultures in Colombia successfully located placed carcasses 63% of the time compared to just 5% in mammals.
Facultative – or opportunistic – scavengers cannot functionally replace vultures and would be unable to compensate for their loss. When placing carcasses to analyze scavenger demographics, half were deposited in a way that prevented vulture ingress. Only 20% of carcasses were scavenged when vultures were excluded, but this jumped to 95% when given access. Without vultures, carcasses take 3x longer to decompose, which has significant implications for disease transmission, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem functioning.
What is being done to revive vulture populations?
Thus, it even more crucial to focus conservation efforts on saving these unique creatures. Supporting existing vulture populations can give them a fighting chance, and vulture restaurants have become increasingly popular since the sixties. These supplementary feeding stations ensure a reliable, non-contaminated food source where researchers can closely monitor groups. They also provide a guaranteed social group for newly released captive-bred or rehabilitated individuals.
However, the biggest impact requires policy change to resolve the poison crisis. Since pinpointing the diclofenac catastrophe in 2004, many Asian countries have banned its use in agriculture – including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Iran, and Cambodia.
Technology is also generating novel solutions. Vultures fitted with mortality trackers attached to GPS devices can alert rapid-response teams of a fatality. Trained personnel attend the scene and decontaminate the carcass to prevent further poisonings. They can also collect forensics for prosecution and assess the health of other vultures in the area and co-ordinate treatment and rehabilitation if needed.
The Importance of Education
To improve strategy success rates, conservationists must involve local stakeholders. Employing them as guardians in rapid response teams can alleviate the economic struggles that necessitate reliance on traditional medicine. In the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere, South Africa’s Environmental Monitor Programm employs several residents who speak the local languages and are familiar with the geography. They conduct patrols, snare removal, and community outreach and education.
Education has a positive effect in reducing demand for vulture parts. Workshops provided by the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Birds of Prey Programme in South Africa discuss the vulture crisis with traditional healers, and many are now refusing to use vultures due to the risk of clients developing secondary poisoning via consumption of contaminated flesh.
Changing such beliefs has huge potential, especially during times of political unrest. The inauguration of a new government in March 2020 – coupled with the beginning of the pandemic – saw Guinea-Bissau thrown into turmoil, and over 2,000 critically endangered hooded vultures became innocent victims. Many remains were decapitated and were “bubbling at the beak”, indicating they were poisoned to harness their luck. Helping people understand the health risks can reduce demand for vulture parts, and prevent such tragedies ever occurring.
Such cultural evolution is unfortunately slow to adopt. Unfortunately, this means that many vulture species are already falling below sustainable population thresholds. Breeding programmes provide a buffer but should only be used as a last resort because it ultimately means the species has suffered a genetic bottleneck. They are also notoriously expensive: re-wilding the Californian Condor has cost tens of millions of dollars.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, there is hope for the future. Thanks to breeding centres such as VulPro in South Africa, the Cape Vulture was downlisted from endangered to vulnerable in 2021. In Europe, captive breeding programmes have seen Bearded Vultures recolonize former ranges. Additionally, the Griffon and Cinereous Vultures have increased by 200% and 50% respectively.
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Written by: Amber Chapman