Birdlife international has announced that African vultures are in trouble as populations have dropped by 95% outside of national parks. Hooded- white-backed-, white-headed & rueppels vulture have been upgraded to critically endangered. Cape vulture and lappet-faced vulture are now classified as endangered. Causes are threefold: deliberate poisoning of carcasses agains mammalian predators/ stray dogs, killing of vultures for traditional medicine and third the killing of vultures by poachers to avoid recently poached carcasses to be found.... Africa?s vultures are sliding towards extinction warns BirdLife | BirdLife After almost 2 weeks in Kenya I have not seen a single vulture, though in Ethiopia they still seemed common...
This is indeed very sad, but I find this somewhat surprising at how endangered these vultures are. In Ethiopia (as lintworm said) they seemed very common when I visited even around farms and human settlement with many vultures - including the critically endangred ones - common around farms and rubbish dumps etc. Though in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa they seemed much rarer but still common in the big national parks such as Kruger. (actually, I don't remember seeing any vultures at all outside national parks in Tanzania, Kenya or South Africa.)
That they have been upgraded to CR is probably because of the huge reduction in numbers 62% decline since the 90ies for hooded vulture. But it seems that Ethiopia has not suffered from such huge reductions yet or the numbers must have been insanely high there before....
Project to protect the vultures of Zambia : Helping farmers create a safe haven for vultures in Zambia | BirdLife
Also, diclofenac should not be forgotten. Pain-killing and antipyretic medicine that is commonly used in domestic animals, and very toxic/lethal for vultures. There are ongoing disscussions for ban of its use on animals in Europe. This drug was also responsible for the sharp decline of Indian vultures populations in the last decades, things are now going to change.
Action-plan to protect European and African vultures : https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2017-064.pdf
Its interesting to see the nonlinear way humans affect other species such as this. Presumably where the vultures are locally common their diet must have changed to human garbage, same as the unrelated black vultures in Peru. Should vultures elsewhere die out in a bottleneck event, garbage dump vultures will survive as long as humans provide for them. And compared to most of Africa which was nomadic, or hunter gatherer before the Bantu wave, Ethiopia has the longest period of large and permanent settlements with rubbish dumps, so my guess is the Ethiopian vultures have been behaviourally different for centuries.
