AFRICAN VULTURES BULLETIN

BirdLife Africa Partnership

September— October 2016

PARTNER UPDATES ON GROUND ACTIONS

Morocco– In Morocco, information available about vultures and the rest of northwest Africa is decades old. Observations of the globally endangered

Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) in Morocco become so rare in the 21st century that some authors considered the species on the verge of

local extinction as a breeding species. The Moroccan population of the species has undergone a marked decline since the 1980s (when it was esti-

mated to number between 500-1000 pairs), but lack of recent studies means we didn’t know much about where the species has really gone and

where it’s still breeding. For more details about this aspect, please see: “The plight of the Egyptian Vulture and hopes for the future” In English and

French. GREPOM set up an expedition in 2014 to the Middle Atlas Mountains to search the species in the region. During the survey we found new

occupied breeding territories and a communal roosting site, the first of its kind in Northwest Africa, which hosted 40 vultures of different ages. The

results of this study were published in Ostrich journal.

In 2016, with the support of the African Bird Club, we continued our monitoring in the Middle Atlas region. During this year, we studied better and

confirmed the importance of the communal roosting site discovered in 2014, we also found that Egyptian Vultures use other nearby cliffs for roost-

ing as well (especially during the day). As is the case elsewhere, in Morocco, the species was known to frequent rubbish dumps in the past, but none

were found during the survey. In the neighboring Algeria, the species still frequently photographed at rubbish dumps (S. Telailia, pers. comm.), sever-

al reasons could explain this difference in the use of landfills by the species in two North African countries. We did however observe them soaring in

search for carcasses and also feeding on insects on recently mowed fields.

In addition to three breeding territories known since the previous work, we found six new territories in 2016. The work involved also gathering infor-

mation about the threats to the species and local knowledge about this and other raptors. Some new data about other species were also gathered.

We would like to thank the African Bird Club for the financial support in 2016 without which this work would not have been possible.

Zambia- Two farmers have been identified in the bid to create “Vulture safe Zones” in Chisamba area where livestock farming is extensive. These

farms attract different species of vultures and they also have large trees that are suitable for roosting and used as breeding sites. BirdWatch Zambia

is in the process of developing guidelines on how to effectively implement Vulture Safe Zones in the African context to ensure that farms are safe for

vultures. Vulture population surveys and community awareness and engagement activities particularly with people working in the Livestock farms is

on-going.

RESEARCH AND MONITORING

Ghana— Ghana Wildlife Society are carrying out Hooded Vulture surveys in Ho-

Volta region, Kumasi-Ashanti region and Sekondi Takoradi—Western Region of

Ghana, through support of a small grant from the RSPB/BirdFair Endangered Spe-

cies fund. More surveys on the species will be carried out before the end of the

year.

Nature Kenya and the peregrine fund have completed the first phase of an agro-

chemical use survey in Masai Mara from two major towns around the reserve. A

second survey phase to cover an additional four major towns around the Masai

Mara reserve is ongoing. The survey is targeting agro-vet shops and households

through questionnaires to collect information.

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Photo: Vultures feeding at a carcass at an IBA site on a farm in Chisamba,

Zambia, now being targeted as a Vulture Safe Zone.

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VULTURE CONSERVATION STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION

Vulture Multi-Species Action Plan to conserve African-Eurasian Vultures (Vulture MsAP): The Africa Regional MsAP workshop is scheduled to take

place next week from 18– 21 October 2016 in Dakar, Senegal. 50 participants have been confirmed from various BirdLife partners, conservation and

research NGO experts and governments being represented. The workshop will take place at the Ngor Diarama Hotel alongside the 14th

Pan-

African Ornithological Congress (PAOC 14) in LION ROOM. Day 1 of the workshop on the 18th will be a series of presentations from different

countries and vulture experts from around Africa and will be open to the public. The agenda for day 1 and participants list can be found here and

the MsAP background note can be found here.

POLICY AND LEGISLATION ACTIONS FOR VULTURES

Vulture Side Event at CITES COP17:

The side event was successfully conducted on Monday 26th

September 2016 with 65 participants, majority from governments. The event was chaired

by Botswana Head of Delegation and had panellists from CMS, Government of Nigeria and Kavango-Zambezi Trans frontier Conservation Area. The

plight facing vultures, particularly in regard for trade in traditional medicine and the impact of vulture declines due to elephant poaching. Panellists

responded to a number of questions posed to them by chair, followed by feedback from participants. Key recommendations included the need to

work holistically with other sectors including agriculture and health; the need to do more research to show the trade link as a threat to vultures to

help push for up-listing old world vulture species to Appendix I of CITES, the need for increased government—led awareness creation and local com-

munity engagement to be heightened. The event was picked-up by Washington Post available here.

PUBLIC AWARENESS ON THE PLIGHT AND VALUE OF VULTURES

Nature Kenya at Trade Expo: Nature Kenya has developed communi-

cation materials to help clearly articulate the plight of vultures across

the country. Posters have been distributed to various community

groups, conservation stakeholders, schools and government agencies.

Nature Kenya also used the opportunity of the Nairobi Trade Fair which

took place from 3 to 7 October, 2016 to reach out to over 15 school

groups and over 1000 individuals to raise awareness about the issues

N.B: If you have any interesting or newsworthy vulture updates please

send them to: Masumi.Gudka@birdlife.org

Photo; Nature Kenya staff during the Nairobi trade fare with two school

groups talking about the importance of vultures.

Vintage Air Rally—London Launch 11th of October, 2016

The launch of the VintageAirRally in London provided a number of great

opportunities to raise awareness and funding for African vultures. An

aircraft exhibition was organized in the morning where Marion Klein

(Fundraising Officer for Africa, BLI) and Shaun Hurrell (Communication

Officers, BLI) had a number of opportunities to raise awareness about

the vulture crisis through informal chats with people coming to see the

vintage airplane and exchanges with the press. In the evening, a gala

dinner took place. Phil Woollam (Director of Fundraising and Marketing,

BLI) made a presentation on the vulture crisis and showed the “I am

misunderstood” video. All participants seemed to be strongly impacted

by the video. During his presentation, Phil also introduced the Vin-

tageAirRally BirdLife platform through which each of the rally crews will

raise funds to support BirdLife’s work to save vultures in Africa. After the

dinner, an auction was organized where seven prizes, offered by the

VintageAirRally team and some of the rally crews, were auctioned. A to-

tal of 9025 Pounds has been raised through these auctions. Some inter-

esting discussions were had with guests such as the High Commissioner

of Botswana and the Ambassador of Egypt during the gala dinner.

Photo; Shuan Hurrell standing with the BirdLife-VintageAirRally Vulture

banner and a vintage plane during the launch in London.