Notably, 35 of the birds were beheaded — pointing strongly to the involvement of traditional healers who market vulture brains and other body parts to bring good fortune, boost exam performance or enhance chances of winning the Lotto or horse racing bets.

A recent study on the use of vultures by an association of traditional healers in the Bushbuckridge area of Mpumalanga estimated that this single association of more than 400 healers may use as many as 400 to 800 vultures a year.

Wildlife conservation staff line up the carcasses of some of the white-backed vultures and tawny eagles found poisoned in northern KwaZulu-Natal on 18 December. (Photo: Anel Olivier Wildlife ACT)

The provincial conservation agency, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, and the conservation group Wildlife ACT confirmed that 52 poisoned vultures and five tawny eagles were discovered on 18 December in the northern part of the province. Five of the vultures were still alive, while the heads of 35 of the 47 dead vultures had been chopped off.

Earlier this month, national environment minister Barbara Creecy published a draft biodiversity management plan for South Africa’s seven resident vulture species in an effort to reverse their steady rate of decline in most parts of the country.

The exact location of the killing site has not been disclosed because police and conservation officers are working to track down the perpetrators and the suppliers of the poison.

Rehabilitation centre

The five surviving birds were treated at the scene and taken to a rehabilitation centre, but their chances of survival remain uncertain. 

The carcasses of the poisoned birds are destroyed in a bonfire to prevent further poisoning of other wildlife. (Photo: Anel Olivier / Wildlife ACT)

The carcasses of the dead birds were piled up and burnt soon afterwards by conservation officials to decontaminate the scene and avert further poisoning deaths.

Brent Coverdale, a senior mammal and bird scientist at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, said the deliberate poisoning of vultures for use in the traditional medicine trade was now one of the major threats facing South Africa’s vultures.

“The current spate of such poisonings is unsustainable and will lead to the demise of vultures within South Africa and simultaneously, devastating environmental consequences, and the loss of cultural heritage,” he said.

Ezemvelo said local conservation agencies believed that traditional healers — and the associations they belong to — remain critical stakeholders in the conservation of vultures and have a duty to ensure that such poisonings are strongly discouraged and reported to the authorities.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

Writing in the draft vulture management plan published last week, local bird experts noted that more than 90 other vultures were poisoned in the same area between 2019 and 2020. These incidents included 83 white-backed and six lappet-faced vultures, and one white-headed vulture.

“It is believed that the last adult white-headed vulture resident in the northern cluster of KwaZulu-Natal’s vulture breeding population (the area including Mkuze, Pongola and Magudu) was killed during these events.

“These incidents, combined with other environmental pressures, continue to place pressure on the existing population, thereby supporting predictions by McKean et. al (2013) that such populations could become locally extinct by 2034.”

In a foreword to the draft management plan, Creecy said vultures play a crucial role as “nature’s clean-up crew”. 

“That is, they do the dirty work of cleaning up after animals die, helping to keep ecosystems healthy as they act as natural carcass recyclers.”

South Africa has seven resident species of vulture. As can be seen from the table, their numbers are dropping fast. (Graphic: Draft Vulture Management Plant, 2022)

The report notes that pesticides are used frequently to poison a variety of animals and vultures for commercially based traditional medicine. It also records that vulture body parts are used to treat a range of physical and mental diseases, or to bring “good fortune”.

“With the rapid growth of human populations, and more effective harvesting methods (through highly toxic substances), with an already declining vulture population, the impact of harvesting for traditional use is becoming more apparent.”

Critically endangered

South Africa has seven resident vulture species, three of which (white-headed, hooded and white-backed) are listed globally as critically endangered — the highest category of threat which indicates a high risk of extinction in the wild.

The lappet-faced vulture is listed as endangered while the bearded vulture has been assessed as critically endangered at a regional level.

Commenting this week on the latest mass poisoning, local traditional authority leader, iNkosi Gumbi, said: “The loss of so many vultures from this area is extremely sad and it affects the health of our ecosystem and the livelihoods of our people.

“As the Gumbi community, we are working hard to establish a conservation-based economy, and illegal activity such as this has a large impact.”

The draft 118-page vulture biodiversity management plan can be accessed here. DM