At least 150 critically endangered vultures have been poisoned to death in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa, conservationists said on Friday, warning the kills would bring the birds closer to extinction.
Vulture poisoning is not uncommon in game-rich southern Africa, where poachers target them for drawing unwanted attention to their illegal activities.
Their heads are also used in traditional medicine, according to wildlife groups.
In recent incidents, more than 50 white-backed vultures were found dead in Botswana’s northern Chobe district on Friday, while about 100 others were spotted in South Africa’s Kruger National Park on Thursday, according to vulture conservation group Vulpro.
In both cases, the birds died after eating the carcass of a buffalo that appeared to have been spiked with poison, said Kerri Wolter, Vulpro’s founder.
“What makes it even more catastrophic is that it’s breeding season now,” Wolter told AFP, explaining that chicks wouldn’t survive without their parents.
Park officials in South Africa said they were investigating the incident, adding that some of the carcasses appear to have been harvested for their body parts.
“Given the critical condition of vultures worldwide, poisonings of this magnitude put the species at increasing risk of extinction,” said Yolan Friedmann, head of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s conservation group, in a statement on the Kruger incident.
The white-backed vulture is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of critically endangered bird species.
One of the biggest vulture deaths recorded in Botswana in recent years was in 2019, when 537 carcasses were discovered in the Chobe Game Reserve after eating the carcasses of three elephants killed by poachers.
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