The number of trees used for nesting by Lappet-faced vultures is decreasing because elephants are pushing them over – but experts have been left baffled as to why this is happening.
Dr Campbell Murn, Head of Conservation and Research at the Hawk Conservancy Trust, believes that while the Lappet-faced vulture is considered Endangered on the IUCN Red List, if it were reassessed today, the species would likely be considered Critically Endangered due to the increased threats.
Pushing trees over is not a new practice – elephants have always toppled them to eat their leaves, berries and roots – but it has a particularly devastating impact on the vultures.
Dr Murn said: “In a world where elephants were still numerous, and Africa still had large areas of wilderness, if an elephant pushed over a tree, it was no big deal as there were loads of other trees.
“The problem is, when you confine elephants to a certain area [either by fencing them in or they know it is safe so they don’t wish to leave], they start to have a really big impact on the landscape.”
Lappets are incredibly fussy about choosing a nest site. The species only uses two to three types of trees, and an increasing population of elephants in Kruger National Park are pushing them over and destroying nesting sites.
Dr Murn warned: “We don’t have an answer to it – we might have one when it’s too late.”
This new issue adds to the already numerous threats that Lappets face in the wild, including habitat fragmentation, harvesting for belief-based purposes and traditional medicine, or the development of energy infrastructure in Africa.
The expert explained: “[The elephant issue] means there are fewer breeding opportunities for these birds and then if you overlay that with a few adults being poisoned, those two things together are going to result in population numbers going down. And these numbers are going down quite noticeably.
“We estimate that the population in Kruger, a big area about the size of Wales, is decreasing at about 4% a year, which doesn’t sound like a lot. But in about 30 years, if it doesn’t change, that trajectory means that [breeding] population will probably be gone from Kruger.”
The Hawk Conservancy Trust, alongside South African National Parks and their Africa Project Officer, Andre Botha from the Endangered Wildlife Trust, launched a project in 2022 to tackle the crisis.
Currently, the team is working to create special protection areas around these trees and to stop the decline in breeding sites.
They have focused on the types of elephant deterrents to implement in Kruger, monitoring the nesting sites and working with park rangers.
Mr Botha said: “In our engagement with rangers within Kruger National Park, they certainly share our concerns about Lappet-faced vultures.
“They are certainly very supportive, providing support on the ground, such as allowing us access to sites where we know they’re breeding, assisting with aerial surveys, flying and identifying existing and new nest sites, and we are now starting to work with them to implement practical mitigation to safeguard individual nests sites.”
Of the 23 species of vultures, over half are considered either Threatened, Endangered, or Critically Endangered, largely due to human impact.
In the last 50 years, the populations of seven of the 11 African species have plummeted, and four species are now critically endangered.
