At Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve, several white-backed vultures are enjoying fresh animal remains. This week, 11 white-backed vultures were devastated by pecking at the remains of poisoned lions.
摄影：MICHAEL NICHOLS，NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Written by: Jani Actman
Three lions have been killed in recent days in southwestErn Kenya, and five others are still poisoned, all from the Marsh Pride of the Masai Mara National Reserve, who are also big stars in the BBC's Big Cat Diary.
While lions are the most closely watched victims of the incident, they are not the only victims. Eleven endangered white-backed vultures also died after pecking at the former's remains, raising even greater concerns. Animal poisoning can lead to a decline in scavenger populations, both in Africa and everywhere, and the disgusting predatory behavior of the animals is often avoided, thus neglecting their protection.
"It's a worldwide problem," said Darcy Ogada, deputy director of Africa at the Peregrine Falcon Foundation, a nonprofit based in Idaho. In a paper published in June, she analyzed that by collecting partial data from 26 African countries over the past 30 years, she found that 60 percent of the 7,800 dead vultures died of poisoning.
At the same time, the continent's eight species of vultures have decreased by an average of 62 percent, and four of them are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Most of the time, vulture poisoning is not deliberate. In the case of the recent case of lion poisoning in Kenya, Maasai herders poisoned lions in retaliation for attacking livestock. Officials have arrested two suspects, and one will appear as a key witness.
Of course, there are also deliberate ones, according to a report published Monday in the journal Oryx, ivory poachers are extremely vicious, and they will deliberately poison elephants to indirectly kill vultures so that no birds hovering over them will reveal their whereabouts. The researchers found that between 2012 and 2014, more than 10 poaching cases killed 150 elephants and more than 2,000 vultures in seven African countries.
There are 23 species of vultures worldwide, and they face various threats in both developed and underdeveloped regions.
Americas: Numbers recovering
The population of the California vulture began in the early 2000s, when the situation was disastrous. After decades of effort, their numbers have gradually recovered, but the lead bullets used by hunters remain in the wreckage of some of their prey and still lead to lead poisoning in scavenger California vultures.
Africa: Declining numbers
The vultures in Africa face extremely severe tests, herders poisoning lions to protect their livestock, and poachers trying to prevent vultures from revealing their tracks, all of which indirectly or directly harm the vultures. The population size of some vultures has shrunk in half over the past decade. In addition, there are still many witch doctors in the local area who believe that the future can be seen with the help of the magic of the vulture's brain.
India: Out of control
India's vulture population plummeted in the mid-1990s. Hindus worship cattle and forbid the consumption of beef, so most of the cattle are left in the wild after death, but the use of the drug diclofenac on cattle at that time was very popular, resulting in the kidney failure of scavenger vultures and death. It was not until 2006 that the drug was banned in India.
Drawing: MATTHEW TWOMBLY, LAUREN C. TIERNEY, CHIQUI ESTEBAN, National Geographic
Source: STEVE KIRKLAND, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; International Bird Federation; VIBHU PRAKASH, Mumbai Natural History Society
In the mid-1990s, the plummeting number of vultures in India was known as the "Asian vulture crisis". According to Ogada, Hindus worship cattle and use the painkiller diclofenac for seriously ill cattle to relieve their suffering, but indirectly hurt the vultures that eat these dead cattle.
According to the Guardian, Spain also uses the drug, while 95% of the vultures in Europe live there.
In North America, lead bullets used by hunters remain in the wreckage of some of their prey, making it easy for The California vulture to die of lead poisoning. Since the demise of the wild California vulture in 1987, human captivity conservation programs have seen a marked pick-up in their numbers.
Although vultures are not noble in the minds of the public, they are an extremely important link in ecology. They have a highly developed digestive system and even eat the remains of sick animals unscathed. Without their presence, the likelihood of germ transmission would be greatly increased, as scavengers like coyotes or city dogs are not up to the task, Ogada says.
In India, for example, wild dogs replaced vultures as the main scavenging chain, and as a result rabies broke out. David Allan, director of the Ornithology Museum at durban Natural Science Museum in Durban, analyzed to the National Geographic Society in July that the rabies that should not have occurred increased India's health care expenditure by 220 billion yuan between 1993 and 2006.
The Poisoning of Lions in Kenya continued to ferment, and the vulture was unfortunately caught. Maasai herders reportedly poisoned the lions in retaliation for attacking livestock, indirectly injuring vultures.
Ogada loves vultures more than ecology: "They look cool. They will hiss in quarrels, kick and kick in clashes, and are full of wild charm. ”
However, misfortune is unfolding in the Masai Mara National Reserve, where pastoral areas continue to shrink as land subdivisions and privatization accelerate, and conflicts between humans and lions continue to worsen. It is notorious for some Maasai herders to drive their cattle into the Maasai Mara National Reserve in the evening, where the pasture is much fatter, but this is illegal, explains Anne Kent Taylor, a natural resource protector in the Masai Mara Reserve and a representative of the Big Cat Rescue Team at the National Geographic Society.
Although the pesticides used in the poisoning of lions are still being identified in detail in laboratories, they are generally considered to be highly toxic carbamates. Pesticides like butylk budweiser and kabafuran are banned in both the EU and the US, but are commonly found in wildlife poisoning incidents.
In 2009, CBS reported on the poisoning of lions at the Masai Mara National Conservation Area in 60 Minutes, and the Philadelphia-based kabafuran producer adopted a buyback program for Furadan in Kenya.
But as Ogada fears, African countries should focus on controlling access to highly toxic pesticides. "Not to mention that the harm of pesticide abuse is far more than the poisoning of wild animals."