- Vultures are invaluable to the ecosystem and human health.
- By eating rotting carcasses, they prevent the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, rabies and anthrax.
Image: COURTESY:
The Kenya Wildlife Service is investigating the mass poisoning of 18 birds of prey in Laikipia county.
Preliminary investigations indicate the vultures probably died after eating carcasses of two camels that had been poisoned after a lion killed them. He was not identified.
"The two camels that had been missing from a boma for four days were killed by a lion whose pawprints were identified in the vicinity," KWS spokesman Paul Udoto said on Wednesday.
The birds probably died after eating the carcasses, he said. It is an offence to kill an endangered animal.
The dead birds included 11 Rufus vultures, seven tawny eagles and one silver jackal, all endangered
Udoto said KWS is working with the local administration and DCI to determine the source of the poison and the guilty person or persons.
Villagers sometimes poison carcasses of animals killed by predators in hopes the predators themselves will return and be poisoned. Vultures can be collateral damage when they feed on the poisoned carcass.
Or they can be deliberately poisoned by poachers so no one is alerted by circling vultures that an animal has been killed, such as an elephant for its tusks.
KWS dispatched a team to investigate the deaths of the scavengers.
Udoto said samples have been taken to the Government Chemist for analysis.
"The vulture carcasses have been disposed of to prevent the possible spread of disease," he said.
The deaths caused an uproar in conservation circles after photos of the dead endangered African vultures surfaced online.
On February 6 last year, 20 endangered vultures died at Masai Mara National Reserve after poisoning. They had fed on a poisoned spotted hyena carcass.
Five others that were critically ill, treated and released.
Last year, BirdLife International warned that the African vultures could soon be wiped out as a result of this type of poisoning.
It condemned the Laikipia poisoning, following the recent poisoning of 537 highly endangered vultures by elephant poachers in Botswana.
The June 20 incident resulted in Botswana's highest recorded death of vultures in a single poisoning incident. It is one of the worst killings on the continent.
It rivalled a similar incident in the Caprivi area of Namibia in 2013 when 400 to 600 vultures were poisoned.
BirdLife said the "catastrophic vulture mortality" continues to occur because of poisoning by poachers.
"Poachers poison vultures lest they be sentinels to crime. Targeted and non-targeted poisoning of vultures are escalating at an alarming rate across the continent," it said.
Vultures are invaluable to the ecosystem and human health. By eating rotting carcasses, they prevent the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, rabies and anthrax.
BirdLife said that agrochemicals used to poison vultures must be banned and use of less deadly chemicals encouraged.
“If such catastrophic episodes continue, we may lose the race to save this iconic and vitally important species,” said Beckie Garbett from BirdLife International Africa Partnership secretariat.
Vultures are not glamorous and do not receive the public and conservation support accorded to many threatened mammals.
"This puts them on the back foot in terms of conservation," Garbett said.
Birdlife called for policies to protect vultures.
"Only through high-level driven actions will African vultures get the attention and protection that they deserve from sentinel poisoning," Birdlife said.
BirdLife is a global partnership of conservation organisations protecting birds, their habitats and global biodiversity. It works with communities towards sustainability in the use of natural resources.
(Edited by V. Graham)