JAEI ENVIRONMENTAL CORNER
International Vulture Day
The first Saturday in September is set aside annually as a day to consider the ecological importance of a bird of
prey that is otherwise mostly dismissed with a shudder. With some species under severe threat of extinction,
International Vulture Awareness Day aims to educate a reluctant public in the critical role of this creature to the
well-being of the environment.
Vultures are totally under-appreciated birds, and while there
may be only 23 vulture species in the world, each one of them
fills a vital ecological niche. With vultures traditionally being
perceived as representing death and decay, conservationists
involved in preserving their numbers have faced an uphill battle
in fund-raising efforts and in making theirs a more sympathetic
cause.
The key role of the vulture in signaling the presence of a carcass to other scavengers prevents contamination by
pathogens and helps keep nature free of disease and without them, our environment would be in serious trouble!.
Vultures tend to have bald heads to minimize the feathers that get contaminated from carrion and “bath” often – so
“being horrible, dirty birds” is very far from the truth! Most vulture species mate for life. Vultures have broad wings
for efficient soaring and have extraordinarily good vision so that they can locate their meals by sight. Recent
research has shown that these birds are highly mobile and can cover several 100 kilometres in a day in search of
food. This makes the implementation of effective conservation measures to benefit these species a daunting task.
It is believed in many cultures that by eating vulture’s brain, you will become wise and be able to predict the future
– hence many vultures are killed for these muti purposes (and to predict the winning lotto numbers ….).
Unfortunately, no matter how many vulture brains you eat, that’s not gonna happen! ….
Unfortunately, 14 of the species in the world – more than half – are considered threatened or endangered, and their
populations will continue to decline without urgent help. More bad news is that some of those vultures include our
very own.
Here in South Africa, God has blessed us with a whopping 8 regularly occurring and breeding vulture species of the
world’s 23 species.
Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres).
Our only endemic (i.e. occurring in South African and nowhere else) is the
Cape Vulture. Cape vultures are big, bulky, creamy-white birds with long,
muscular un-feathered necks. Some people call them ugly! Their bald heads
and long necks help them to keep clean while accessing juicy morsels from
right inside the carcass body cavity. Males and females look alike and their
necks are a grey-blue colour. Young birds have a pink tint to their necks, their
heads are covered with a thick down and they have a fluffy scarf of feathers
around their necks.
Cape vultures are the only vultures in southern Africa that live together in large colonies on cliff faces – sometimes
up to a 1000 pairs. These ‘vulture apartment blocks’ can be visible from many kilometres due to extensive faecal
‘white-washing’. Cape vultures used to occur all over southern Africa, even on Table Mountain, but now their
population is declining and there are only six big breeding colonies (with more than 100 pairs) left. They prefer the
more open hilly country of eastern South Africa and cover vast distances foraging for food. In the early morning
these massive scavengers rely on currents of air rising off the cliff-faces to give them lift to fly. Later, as the air
heats up, they can soar for hours high in the sky, often out of our eyesight, on rising currents of hot air called
‘thermals’.
When on the wing and looking for food, Cape Vultures form part of an extensive aerial communication network
watching not only each other, but other scavenging birds and animals on the ground. After all, many eyes make
light work! Vultures can locate their meals from kilometres away using not intuition or smell, but excellent eyesight.
They in fact see about eight times better than humans do. This is the equivalent of looking though a pair of
binoculars. Being able to fly makes vultures far more efficient scavengers than their mammalian counter parts.
They locate the carcass quicker and then glide in to the carcass at a faster rate than the ground predators can run.
This majestic and powerful bird’s conservation status is considered vulnerable due to habitat loss, reduced
availability of carrion, insufficient bone fragments to provide the required calcium for egg laying and young chicks,
powerline collisions, poisoning and killing for traditional medicine.
White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus)
Africa’s most common large vulture, the White-backed Vulture is similar to, but slightly smaller than, the Cape
Vulture in many respects. Its plumage is dark brown with black skin on the neck
and head, making the white lower-back, for which it is named, even more
prominent. White-backed vultures breed at the start of the dry season, nesting in
loose colonies of 2 to 13 birds. Unlike the Cape vulture, the nest is a platform of
sticks, lined with grass and green leaves, situated in the crown or fork of a large
tree. Generally a single egg is laid. Although relatively common in South Africa
(mainly in National Parks), the White-back vultures conservation status in the rest
of Africa is endangered.
Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)
The Bearded Vulture or Lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus) prefers to live in the isolated and rugged MalutiDrakensberg highlands. Unlike other vultures with a bald heads, the Bearded vulture has a feathered head (white
coloured for adults and black plumage for juveniles). The distinction of black, moustache-like, fine black feathers
growing below its beak earned it its name of Bearded Vulture.
Like all vultures they have a carrion diet, but Bearded Vultures are uniquely specialized, both physically and
behaviourally, to live mostly on a remarkable diet of bones and bone-marrow. They have a very wide mouth and
can swallow bones as long as 25cm, but accessing the nutritious bone marrow requires more work. This
magnificent mountain monarch had been noted for its exceptional ability to crush bones of dead animals and does
this by clutching bone pieces by its talons and bringing it at altitude above a rocky terrain
where the bones are dropped to be crushed on the rocky surface exposing the bone marrow.
They are well-adapted to their cold mountainous homes. Their broad, stiff overlapping contour
feathers prevent the icy wind from penetrating the soft, insulating down underneath. Bearded
vultures spend 80% of daylight hours soaring gracefully on the wing, their bare feet tucked in
shaggy feathers to keep them warm. They weigh in at approximately 6kg, have long pointed
wingspans extending 2.6m and extremely long, with conspicuous diamond-shaped tails.
For the first four years of their life Bearded vultures live and scavenge alone. Then they
choose a mate and together make large, untidy, stick nests lined with wool, hair, skin and
other delightful debris built in large potholes that have eroded into the side of cliff-faces. The pair alternate
between a couple of nest sites every year. This practise is thought to increase cleanliness, as overused, befouled
sites have higher parasite infestation.
This bird has suffered more than 30% decline in recent history and there are thought to be only between 125 and
155 pairs left and hence is listed as endangered in South Africa. Their populations are threatened by the fact that
there is less food available to them because of better rural farming practices and thus less stock mortalities. Their
feathers, skins and body parts are used for ceremonial and traditional medicine purposes. They also fall foul to
traps and poisoned baits set out by farmers trying to eradicate stock killers, like jackal and feral dogs and are also
vulnerable to electrocution on power-lines.
Lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotus)
The Lappet-faced vulture is a huge species, ranking as the heaviest and largest-winged vulture. They are
heavier, more powerful and the most aggressive of the vultures and other vultures will usually cede a carcass to the
lappet-faced vulture if it decides to assert itself. This is often beneficial to the less powerful vultures because the
Lappet-face can tear through the tough hides and knotty muscles of large mammals that the others cannot
penetrate.
Overall, the lappet-faced vulture is blackish above with a strongly contrasting white thigh feathers. While flying,
lappet-faced vultures have large, broad wings held with the front edges held parallel and slightly pointed, serratedlooking wingtips.
Like many vultures, it has a bald head. The combination of the colourful head and
fleshy folds on the side of it are distinctive. The bald head of the lappet-faced
vulture is advantageous, because a feathered head would become spattered with
blood and other fluids, and thus be difficult to keep clean.
Perhaps more than any other vultures, lappet-faced vultures have been recorded as
regularly feeding on freshly killed smaller mammals, birds and reptiles. Some of
these are probably road-kills or are pirated from eagles or other raptors but they are
also believed to occasionally attack live animals, especially young and weak
animals and the nests and young of other birds.
Lappet-faced vultures are generally solitary birds. They do not nest in cohesive colonies as do many smaller
vultures, with one tree or area usually only having 1 to 2 nests in it.
This species is patchily distributed through much of Africa and prefers to live in dry savannah thornbush.
The lappet-faced vulture's world population is believed to have decreased perceptibly. They are considered
Vulnerable in South Africa. Their declines are almost entirely due to human activities, including disturbances from
habitat destruction and cultivation, disturbances at the nesting site (to which the species is reportedly quite
sensitive) and ingestion of pesticides and poisons. In some cases the poisoning is done by poachers, who fear the
presence of vultures will alert authorities to their activities, the illegal killings of protected species.
White-headed Vulture (Trigonoceps occipitalis)
With its bare, pink face and bright orange-red bill with a peacock blue base, the White-headed Vulture is one of
Africa’s most colourful vultures. The white-headed vulture gets its name from the downy, white feathers on its
head which give it an angular appearance. The bright facial colours contrast sharply with the black body, tail,
wings and high ruff around its neck. The belly and thighs are white and its legs are pale pink.
Like other vultures, the white-headed vulture has a number of adaptations
for feeding on the carcasses of large animals, but is also capable of killing
small prey. The strong bill is capable of tearing flesh and the sharp, curved
talons can grasp and pierce prey. Their large, broad wings can carry them
for hours as they search for food. This vulture is an early riser and flies out
from its roost earlier in the day than other vultures and is often the first
vulture to arrive at a kill made by carnivores during the previous night, and
will feed on carrion and bone fragments in peace for a while before other
vultures arrive, whereupon the white-headed vulture generally retreats.
White-headed vultures can, however, be very aggressive at a carcass and will rush in to a group of vultures to
grab a scrap of food that is then taken away. This vulture species generally feeds alone or in pairs, and even at
a large carcass rarely more than a handful of white-headed vultures will gather. They are considered to be an
‘aloof’ vulture, generally remaining on the fringe of a large group of feeding vultures. While the white -headed
vulture generally feeds on carcasses, it will also steal food from other birds and, unlike most other vultures,
sometimes kills small or weak prey. The diet of the white-headed vulture also includes termites, locusts, and
sometimes stranded fish, when they are available. White-headed vultures lay a single egg at a time, usually in
the dry season, into a nest they have constructed high up in a thorny acacia or baobab tree
The white-headed vulture has a widespread but patchy distribution in Africa and but is restricted to the northern
and eastern parts of South Africa and are almost entirely confined to protected areas. The white-headed vulture
is considered to be vulnerable in South Africa.
Hooded Vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus)
The Hooded Vulture is one of our smallest vultures, is confined to the extreme north east of South Arica and is
generally uncommon. Birds may form loose colonies and breeds in a stick nest in trees (often palms) , laying just
one egg.
Like other vultures it is a scavenger, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals and waste which it finds by
soaring over savannah and around human habitation, including waste tips and abattoirs.
It often associates with other raptors such as Steppe eagles, especially at termite nests.
In much of its range, there are always several visible soaring in the sky at almost any time
during the day.
This vulture is typically unafraid of humans, and frequently gathers around habitation. It is
sometimes referred to as the “garbage collector” by locals.
The hooded vulture is a typical vulture, with a bald pink head and a greyish “hood”. It has
fairly uniform dark brown body plumage. It has broad wings for soaring and short tail
feathers.
Formerly classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, it was found to have been rarer than previously believed and
thus its status was uplisted to Endangered on the 2011 Red List of Threatened Species. In South Africa, the bird is
listed as Vulnerable.
Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus)
The Egyptian Vulture was thought to be regionally extinct in South Africa.
However, a handful of sightings from 2000 have boosted hopes that there maybe a
few small populations that exist across the country. This bird does not breed in
South Africa at all. The most recent sighting was in the Kruger National Park in 2013
and many people drove to the KNP from hundreds of kilometres away to try and spot
the vulture. This particular bird may have come from East Africa (travelling over
2500km in search of food.) Fewer than 50 sightings of the bird have been confirmed in the country since 1945 and
the species was listed as regionally extinct in Birdlife South Africa’s Red Data Book in 2000.
In the rest of Africa, this species is classified as Endangered as there is evidence that it is probably experiencing a
very rapid decline owing to hunting, persecution and indiscriminate poisoning, as well as habitat loss and
degradation.
Palmnut Vulture (Gypohierax angolensis)
The Palmnut Vulture could well be mistaken for a fish eagle as the colouring is similar, but the conspicuous pink
facial skin and white wing covers give a more overall white appearance.
This bird is locally common in places along the KwaZulu-Natal north coast (far north eastern South Africa near
Mozambique), particularly where Raffia Palms (Raphia australis) are common – especially in
estuaries – although there have been sightings in other areas as well. The strangest / coolest
thing about the Palmnut Vulture, besides its fantastic colouring, is that they are (unlike all the
other species of vultures,) mostly vegetarian; feeding primarily from the flesh of the palm fruits.
However it will also predate amphibians, fish and invertebrates, as well as larger prey such as
small mammals, birds, and reptiles if the opportunity arises, and it will also feed at small
carcasses.
Nests are a large platform of sticks, lined with grass, sisal fibres and dung with raffia palms being the first choice of
abode.
Although there is no immediate threat to this bird and their population is increasing slowly. However, habitat
destruction could well tip the scale negatively.
Now that we have learned how fantastic these much unnecessarily
maligned birds are, let’s give praise and thanks to God, our Creator,
that he made such extraordinarily specialized birds to fit into such
an important niche in our world – without them, this world would be
a poorer … and dirtier … place!