BirdLife Zimbabwe (BLZ) strongly condemns the recent accidental poisoning and death of fifty two critically endangered White-backed Vultures that took place in Featherstone (Central Zimbabwe) on the 13th of January 2020. Seventy vultures were located over a two-day period of which fifty one had perished. Nineteen live birds were collected and rushed to Harare for treatment. One bird died in transit and another individual succumbed after three days of treatment. Of the remaining seventeen birds, two are still in a critical condition while fifteen are currently under rehabilitation with the aim of releasing them back into the wild.<\/p>\n
Many thanks to Josh Stafford, Craig Mirams, Tracey Couto and others for their quick response, climbing trees at all hours of the night to rescue the sick birds. High accolade also to Mark Donoghue and the Kamfinsa Veterinary staff for assistance with the initial emergency and ongoing medical treatment of the vultures.
\nAfrican vulture populations cannot sustain such high losses as they are declining at an alarming and unsustainable rate. Vultures play a critical role in our environment by cleaning up carcasses that contain harmful diseases such as tuberculosis, rabies, anthrax and botulism, thus helping prevent the spread of disease amongst humans and animals.
\nThe commitment in this country of government, the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe and other stakeholders to save vultures is a very high priority. Zimbabwe is the first country in Africa to have a National Vulture Action Plan. The plan lays out the critical actions needed to address the continued loss of vultures.
\nMeanwhile BirdLife Zimbabwe is working with the authorities to map a strategy to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. We call upon all stakeholders to combine efforts in response to this catastrophe.<\/p>\n
BLZ’s mission is to promote the survival of birds and biodiversity in Zimbabwe and elsewhere for both their intrinsic value and enjoyment of future generations.<\/p>\n
Ecosystems, Ecosystems service and Biodiversity \u2013 our natural capital – must be preserved as the foundations for a sustainable future for us all.<\/p>\n
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BirdLife Zimbabwe (BLZ) strongly condemns the recent accidental poisoning and death of fifty two critically endangered White-backed Vultures that took place in Featherstone (Central Zimbabwe) on the 13th of January 2020. Seventy vultures were located over a two-day period of which fifty one had perished. Nineteen live birds were collected and rushed to Harare for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesoil.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}