A huge international effort has succeeded in protecting endangered vultures by tackling threats to the birds along their migration route between Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Conservationists have been chipping away at dangers to the birds, and a project launched in 2017 aimed to protect them over their entire migration route.
In the Balkans, the number of poisoning incidents was cut in half between 2018 and 2022 by conservationists working with farmers to reduce the use of poisoned bait for livestock predators, which is then consumed by vultures. In addition, 30 captive-bred vultures were released in Bulgaria, a key breeding site, between 2016 and 2022.
The European-Union-funded project also insulated live components on more than 10,000 electricity poles near perching sites in countries from Bulgaria to Ethiopia and promoted the use of substitutes for vulture body parts in traditional medicine in Niger and Nigeria.
This ambitious conservation effort has led to a decrease in mortality of 2 per cent for adults and 9 per cent for juveniles, and a population growth of 0.5 per cent per year, benefiting other migratory birds that use the same route as the vultures, including buzzards, eagles, and storks. To avoid electrocution, plastic or rubber covers were used to insulate power cables wherever conservation teams detected lots of dead birds.
According to Kerri Wolter at VulPro, a conservation group in South Africa, “Any intervention to save vultures is important, and the Balkans project has a good chance of success. It’s kind of all hands on deck, and all conservation interventions and strategies are important in order to do everything within our means [to save the species].” EU funding to protect the Egyptian vultures’ flyway ended at the end of 2022, but the work must continue to ensure mortality rates don’t increase again.
