International Vulture Awareness Dayby Bharat Adhikari | 01-09-2018 16:37 |
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History: The first Saturday in September each year is celebrated as International Vulture Awareness Day. On 5th September 2009, conservation groups in South Africa and the United Kingdom organized the first International Vulture Awareness Day. The International Vulture Awareness Day has grown from Vulture Awareness Days run by the Birds of Prey Programme of the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa and the Hawk Conservancy Trust in England, who decided to work together and expand the initiative into an international event. Now it is celebrated each year on the first Saturday in September to highlight the ecological importance of vultures. It is now recognized that a coordinated international day will publicize the conservation of vultures to a wider audience and highlight the important work being carried out by the world's vulture conservationists. Facts about Vultures and their ecological importance: Vultures are an ecologically vital group of birds that face a range of threats in many areas that they occur. Populations of many species are under pressure and some species are facing extinction. Vultures are birds that evolved to scavenge carrion, or dead animals. The 23 species are divided into two main groups based on geography: Old World vultures (Asia, Africa, and Europe) and New World vultures (North and South America). Their similar bald appearance evolved independently at least twice, which means that New World vultures (such as black vultures) are more closely related to many other kinds of birds than to Old World vultures. Vultures are an important part of many food webs. Without vultures, carcasses take longer to decompose and may attract more mammalian scavengers or lay rotting while invertebrate scavengers clean up. In Africa, vultures such as the Cape vulture are under threat from poisoning by poachers because they can reveal the locations of poached carcasses when they circle overhead in large groups. Asian vultures suffered serious population declines in the last decade due to eating carcasses of domestic animals treated with a drug (diclofenac) that causes kidney failure. Some New World vultures, such as turkey vultures, are common and unthreatened, but both the California condor and Andean condor are threatened by poisoning and habitat loss. People can share their observations of vultures with the Great Nature Project or other citizen science projects in order to help understand vulture behavior and distributions. Found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, vultures consume carrion – a food most other animals won't touch. As such, these often-misunderstood birds are invaluable contributors to ecosystems around the world. We don't want to imagine a planet without them – not only do they keep our environments clean, but they also prevent the spread of disease. Major Threats: Vultures are among the world's fastest-declining bird species. Of the 23 vulture species in the world, 14 are listed as threatened or endangered, and without proper conservation initiatives, their numbers will continue to decrease drastically. Vultures fall prey to many threats directly caused by man. The primary threats faced by the species includes poisoning for the traditional medicine trade or by poachers, agricultural poisoning through the illegal use of poisons, accidental poisoning by feeding on meat containing lead or harmful veterinary products, and electrocution and collision with the ever-expanding energy network. Additional threats to the species include ongoing habitat loss and food shortage as a result of infrastructural development, land use change and improved rural farming and animal husbandry techniques. Their decline is largely due to poisoning and consequences of poaching. One poisoned elephant carcass can kill as many as 500 vultures. How can we protect vultures? -Support environmental groups that lobby for better controls of hazardous chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides, and encourage your elected officials to support less toxic solutions. -Encourage your local power company to increase power line visibility with small beacons or accents that can help the birds avoid collisions, particularly in areas with many raptors and vultures. -Support captive bird breeding programs and other conservation initiatives working with vultures either by donating to appropriate organizations or offering volunteer services. -Celebrate International Vulture Awareness Day and help spread the word about how unique, interesting and ecologically important vultures can be so others will join in these birds' conservation. More on: Image from: |
