Countries commit to save vultures from extinction

DESIGN | MICHAEL MOSOTA

What you need to know:

  • Kenya has over 1,100 bird species with eight endemics and 39 globally threatened.
  • Vultures are nature's garbage collectors. These scavengers prevent the spread of disease and thereby directly protect human health.
  • The Lappet-faced Vulture and the Hooded Vulture species are found throughout Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Twelve vulture species have been added to a list of 18 raptors listed as threatened at an international meeting of government representatives and experts in Trondheim, Norway.

Member states, including Kenya, agreed to list the scavengers, including the Hooded Vulture, White-rumped Vulture and the Lappet-faced Vulture, to Annex 1 of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey (Raptors MOU).

Across Africa, vultures die after eating toxic pesticide-laced carcasses intended to kill predators such as hyenas, jackals and lions, or to control wild dog populations.

"Vultures are nature's garbage collectors. These scavengers prevent the spread of disease and thereby directly protect human health.”

They are also electrocuted by power lines, hunted by witchdoctors ‘for their magical powers’ and have their nestling habitat destroyed by human activities.

As a result their population has been decimated, declining by an average of 62 per cent in the last 30 years, according to a study published in Conservation Letters, a journal of the Society for Conservation of Biology.

The study, published in June 2015, found that at least six of the eight African vultures studied appear to qualify for listing on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species. 

According to the study by an international team of researchers, including leading scientists from the National Museums of Kenya, Africa's vultures are facing a range of threats, the most significant of which are poisoning and trade in traditional medicines, which together accounted for 90 per cent of reported deaths.

According to the BirdLife International World Bird Database, Kenya has over 1,100 bird species with eight endemics and 39 globally threatened.

BAN ON DICLOFENAC

The Lappet-faced Vulture and the Hooded Vulture species are found throughout Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Arabian Peninsula.

The African Lappet-faced Vulture population consists of at least 8,000 birds, and there may be 500 in the Middle East, according to Birdlife International. Other common vultures in Kenya are the White-headed vulture, Ruppell’s vulture and the White-backed vulture.

The species’ habitat is found in open grassland, forest edge, wooded savannah, desert and along coasts.

The birds play an important ecological role, according to wildlife conservationists “Vultures are nature's garbage collectors. These scavengers prevent the spread of disease and thereby directly protect human health,” said Bradnee Chambers, the Executive Secretary of Conservation of Migratory Birds.

“In order to prevent yet another crisis, we must preserve animal and public health in Africa by maintaining this unique self-purification capacity of Nature”.

At the Norway meeting, which was held from October 5-8, countries agreed on a coordinated international response led to tackle the African vulture crisis. Iran announced a decision to ban diclofenac, a drug which has almost wiped out vulture populations in India.

The raptors MOU was concluded under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, to which Kenya is a signatory, as a special instrument to address threats to these species.

Countries that have signed the MOU have agreed to work together to better protect vultures, eagles, hawks, falcons and owls. At the meeting, Comoros added its signature bringing the number of Signatories to 53.

ABOUT THE RAPTORS MOU 

The Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey (Raptors MOU) was concluded under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

Bird of prey species included in Annex 1 are assigned within three categories:

Category 1: Globally threatened and Near Threatened species as defined according to the latest IUCN Red List and listed as such in the BirdLife International World Bird Database.

Category 2: Species considered to have Unfavourable Conservation Status at a  regional level within the Range States and territories listed in Annex 2 to the  MoU; and 

Category 3:All other migratory species.

The Annex to the MOU includes an Action Plan with the following key objectives:

To halt and reverse the population declines of globally threatened and near threatened birds of prey and to alleviate threats to them;

To halt and reverse the population declines of other birds of prey with an unfavourable conservation status within Africa and Eurasia and alleviate threats in order to return their populations to favourable conservation status;

To anticipate, reduce and avoid potential and new threats to all bird of prey species, especially to prevent the populations of any species undergoing long-term decline.

Kenya’s 60 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) cover a total of 5.7 million hectares or about 10 per of the land area.